


fragments

by ninasfireescape



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bisexual Suki, Canon Compliant, Episode: s03e05 The Beach, Episode: s03e14-15 The Boiling Rock, F/F, Flash Forward, Flashbacks, Kyoshi Island, LGBTQ in the Avatar universe, Lesbian Azula (Avatar), POV Multiple, just lots of jumping backwards and forwards in time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:28:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22734832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninasfireescape/pseuds/ninasfireescape
Summary: Ty lee was not stupid. She had never been stupid but she had long ago discovered the illusion of naivety made it easier to walk through life. It was easier to suppress things she knew to be true to keep herself from harm, until even she disbelieved them.She always covered her eyes where Azula was concerned.Azula pictured herself as fragmented as the mirrors she smashed in her rages.Some of the shards were large enough that she could still see her face in them, the face everyone else saw. Princess. Soldier. Bloodthirsty. Daughter.In between those were slivers of glass no wider than a hair. Sister. Friend. Insane. Monster. A child.Flashes of crucial moments throughout Ty lee and Azula's lives, surrounding their relationship, building up to encounter between them several years after the war.
Relationships: Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar)
Comments: 60
Kudos: 255





	1. part i

**Author's Note:**

> Hellooo! This is my first Avatar fanfiction, having started watching the series during the Winter holidays. This is the result of not being able to sleep, writing in the notes app during rehearsals and a few creative writing classes.  
> I feel Azula can be redeemed since she was just a child during the original series. However, I wanted to also address how her relationship with Ty lee was unhealthy and show how much work would go into repairing it. I was interested in the depiction of queerness in the Avatar universe discussed in the Turf Wars comics so I've brought that in a bit. I've also explored Ty lee's relationship with femininity and beauty because I found that quite unusual.  
> This first part is going to be made up of moments from throughout Ty lee and Azula's history, switching points of view. Part 2 will pick up a few years after the war.  
> Anyway, hope you enjoy!

The Boiling Rock. Two former friends turned against each other, about to battle it out. Mai with her knives, Azula with her lightning. And Ty Lee, between the two of them, Azula’s devoted friend.

This was the crucial moment of a relationship fifteen years in the making. The centre of a web of conflict made of flashes from their past and even from their future.

* * *

“How could you be so stupid?”

Ty Lee was not stupid. She had never been stupid but she had long ago discovered the illusion of naivety made it easier to walk through life. It was easier to suppress things she knew to be true to keep herself from harm, until even she disbelieved them.

She always covered her eyes where Azula was concerned.

People might remark that Ty Lee flattered Azula out of fear. That was never the way she saw it at all. She adored Azula with such a passion it could cover up all her questionable actions.

* * *

Azula pictured herself as fragmented as the mirrors she smashed in her rages.

Some of the shards were large enough that she could still see her face in them, the face everyone else saw. Princess. Soldier. Bloodthirsty. Daughter.

In between those were slivers of glass no wider than a hair. Sister. Friend. Insane. Monster. A child.

* * *

Everyone in the playground was buzzing with talk of one student. The young princess, the granddaughter of the Firelord, was starting at the Royal Fire Academy today. She was in the same grade as all the new girls. Older girls ran around, interrogating everyone they did not recognise. “Are you Princess Azula? Are you Princess Azula?”

They all knew when the real Princess Azula arrived. A carriage brought her in and out of the window popped a tiny hand, producing orange flames. Anyone looking back on it would have used it as evidence of the person she would become later but perhaps it was just a talented child experimenting with her powers, showing off a little as children do. She climbed out of the carriage and walked up the stairs into the school building, a guard behind her. Just before she went in, she turned and flashed a pair of golden eyes.

Apart from her sisters, Ty Lee was already making friends. Although she was nowhere near the talented gymnast she would grow to be, she impressed her classmates with handstands next to the sandbox. She was about to eat lunch with these girls when she noticed the princess sitting on her own, far away from anyone else. They were impressed or scared or both by this member of the royal family. Ty Lee took her tray over to her.

“Hello, your highness. My name is Ty Lee. May I sit with you?”

Azula looked all around and she was afraid Ty Lee was afraid she’d reject her. She was already backing away when Azula nodded and gestures to the chair at her side.

“Your aura is gold.”

“My what?” Azula looked all up and down her body, inspecting her clothes as if an aura might be the name of a type of button.

“Your aura. It’s an energy around you that tells me your personality. I can see it you know. It’s gold, like your eyes.”

“Is gold a good thing?”

Ty Lee squinted. “I think so.”

“And what color’s yours?”

“Light pink but I want it to be brighter.”

They sat together in sewing class after lunch and worked together too. No one would have believed it knowing Azula even three years later, she was so different back then. She was working with someone, not trying to be better than her or trying to take all the credit. They stitched a flame with a heart inside. A heart on fire.

* * *

For a long time, Ty Lee would tell people her first kiss with a girl was Suki. She was about to turn seventeen. Two blissful years on Kyoshi Island and now she was becoming accustomed to these types of couples that she had never seen at home in the Fire Nation. Several girls she knew had dated each other and her friend Luen had two dads. One day, Ty Lee innocently asked where Luen’s mother was. “I don’t have a mother,” Luen matter-of-factly responded.

When Ty Lee saw Suki kiss another Kyoshi Warrior, she was shocked. Not because it was two girls kissing but because she hadn’t realized Suki and Sokka had broken up. Hadn’t Sokka visited them just last week?

No, they weren’t broken up, Suki explained to her later. They were trying out an ‘open’ relationship. Open relationships were also common among the Kyoshi, Avatar Kyoshi herself having been in several. Suki had always thought if she settled down with anyone, she too would want an open relationship.

“I broached the subject to Sokka ages ago, back when I told him I liked girls. Well, not really told him, just casually dropped it into conversation and he was really shocked. They don’t talk about it in the Water Tribe like we do here. Not that it doesn’t happen, they just don’t talk about it. You know what the Water Tribe are like. Anyway, yes, he was shocked but my boyfriend’s an open-minded guy and he was willing to try it, especially to make me happy. I even suggested he try some experimenting of his own which blew his mind. I think he’s enjoying it though.”

There and then, Suki kissed Ty Lee to show her what it was like, and Ty Lee re-evaluated her whole life, everything she had sort of always known but never really acknowledged. A beautiful fierce girl of the Earth Kingdom, grazing her lips across the gentle ones of a Fire Nation acrobat.

Ty Lee went out with her fellow Kyoshi Warrior Hikari for a few months, but nothing else came of it.

Suki took her to the library one day to explain the model of same-gender love in their world. Kyoshi Island was one of few places where it was openly expressed and accepted. The Air Nomads used to love freely but of course they were no more. Apparently, the case had been the same in the Fire Nation a hundred years before, but Firelord Sozin had put an end to that. For loving the same gender, one could be put to death. It was this information that kindled a repressed memory of a distant uncle of Ty Lee’s. When she was a little girl, he had been carted off to a camp somewhere, a location her parents talked about in hushed whispers once they had sent their seven daughters up to bed. To prevent shame falling upon the family, her grandparents disowned this uncle. Had he had relationships with men?

Kyoshi Island had its own laws, since its namesake, who had loved both men and women in her own right, had broken it away from the conservative Earth Kingdom. Suki had been to a forum with Aang and had brought this up to him and now they were working to implement acceptance all over the world. Ty Lee now had something else to distinguish herself from her identical sisters, for she was the Ty sister who liked girls.

* * *

Her firebending masters had been right when they said Ember Island changes you. That night around the campfire, Azula found herself craving, longing for a different kind of life that she had never been allowed. She had never been so aware of her difference from other kids than when she was at that house party.

“Bad skin?” Zuko yelled at Ty Lee. “Normal teenagers worry about bad skin. I don’t have that luxury. My father decided to teach me a permanent lesson on my face!”

Azula was lucky she did not have a characteristic scar, but she was different too. Other teenagers worried about bad skin, and doing well in class, and going on dates and flirting. Azula did not know how to flirt. When she tried, something violent emerged in her speech, war imagery burnt into her tongue, just like her brother’s scar. She knew nothing but war.

She had thought of herself as a monster before but this was the first time she allowed herself to say it. “My own mother thought I was a monster.” No, she was oversharing, she was becoming too vulnerable. Emotion was a weakness. She quickly twisted the words back so that she sounded confident. “She was right.” Yes, Azula was a monster, but the most powerful monster, one prepared to quash enemies of the Fire Nation. She could not doubt herself.

She had been so jealous earlier, seeing all those boys flirting with Ty Lee, so angry. Anger was Zuko’s trademark emotion, at least explosive anger. Azula was angry too but she could encase it, letting it simmer just below the surface. Here was when it came the closest to bursting out. Why? Because when all her titles were stripped away, Ty Lee was the desirable one and she was nothing. That had to be the reason; she wanted to be like Ty Lee.

They had fun wreaking havoc at the party for those normal teenagers, and for a fleeting moment, a calm wave of happiness washed over Azula. At night, the nightmares returned.

Her mother, _Ursa_ , already made occasional visits to her dreams, and there she was again, crying out to her.

 _“I love you Azula_ ,” the shadow of her mother whispered, and Azula wanted to contradict her but her mouth was glued shut. As quickly as she had appeared, Ursa was gone again, and someone was kissing Azula. It was that regretful moment from earlier that evening, and Azula could not stop the words escaping her mouth, could not stop the blue flames erupting in her hands.

 _“You and I will be the strongest couple in the entire world. We will dominate the earth!”_ But when the flames died down, it was not Chan standing there, Chan that boy who was cool and conventionally attractive and the son of an admiral, a good choice for a princess. Instead, her friend Ty Lee stood opposite her, horrified at her words. It was Ty Lee who she had kissed in her dream and Ty Lee whom she now pushed away.

Azula woke up with her sheets singed, blue sparks still dancing in her palms. She harshly rubbed her lips to erase all traces of the phantom kiss.

* * *

A passionate kiss against a wall in a prison cell, two years after the end of the Hundred Year War. Ty Lee was on guard duty.

Azula initiated it but she did not force herself upon Ty Lee either. There was plenty of time for Ty Lee to know what was coming and to back away.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Ty Lee stomped away, furious tears streaming down her cheeks and leaving streak marks in her Kyoshi makeup.

Azula was using her weakness against her. Azula didn’t care for anybody but her own proud self. Ty Lee reminded herself that all Azula knew was manipulating people and she had let herself become another of her playthings.

* * *

“We’ll get out of this, I promise,” said Mai with more emotion in her voice than Ty Lee had ever heard. They brought their trays of food over to the end of an already packed table.

Ty Lee had been a sobbing mess for days. Now she just stared into the distance with vacancy.

“I can’t believe I let her get away with all of that.” Ty Lee sighed and shook her head.

“Hey, she got into all our heads, scaring us, making us question everything.”

“She’ll destroy the world.”

“They’ll stop her. Zuko and the avatar and his friends,” Mai reassured her.

“She killed the avatar once and she tried to kill Zuko. Her own brother, Mai! You didn’t see her eyes!”

“It’s alright. Focus on keeping your aura pink.”

Ty Lee looked at her with dead eyes. “I don’t believe in auras anymore.”

Mai the optimist and Ty Lee defeated. What strange times these were.

“Hey, I know you!” A girl stood over them. Muscles rippled along her forearms.

“No, you don’t.” Mai shielded Ty lee and started to rise.

“Yes, I do. You were traveling with that Fire Nation princess. You attacked us.” That really didn’t narrow it down. They had attacked so many people at Azula’s side that they must have plenty of enemies in this prison.

“I’m a Kyoshi Warrior.” Ah.

“Sorry, we’re not with Azula anymore. She threw us in here, same as you.”

“Hey, we don’t go looking for trouble. Why don’t you...come sit with us? Your friend looks like she could do with some kindness right now.” The Kyoshi Warrior gestured to Ty Lee.

“Thanks, but I think we’re—"

“Let’s do it, Mai” Ty Lee hopped up from the table, invigorated.

The gray walls that encased them looked that bit brighter. The Kyoshi Warrior introduced herself as Hikari, and one by one, the other Warriors introduced themselves too. They didn’t seem to have any qualms about sitting with their former enemies and complimented Ty Lee and Mai’s fighting techniques and their hairstyles.

“Do you know what happened to our leader Suki?” Hikari asked.

“Suki? Is that the girl—?”

Mai nodded. “Yes, she was in the Boiling Rock.”

“What’s the Boiling Rock?”

“The highest security prison in the Fire Nation. It’s impossible to get out of.”

“Oh.” Hikari’s face fell.

“Wait, wait! She did get out!” Ty lee reminded Mai. “She got away with Zuko!”

“As in _Prince_ Zuko of the Fire Nation? What did he want with her?”

“No, he left to join up with the Avatar. He and Sokka from the Southern Water Tribe broke her out.” The Kyoshi Warriors had missed out on a lot while they’d been in here.

“Wow, people really are betraying the Fire Nation left, right and center.”

“We’re not betraying the Fire Nation!” Ty Lee shouted. “We _are_ the Fire Nation!”

“The Fire Nation destroyed our Kingdom and Prince Zuko burned down our village.”

“The Fire Nation has been around for hundreds of years. We haven’t always wanted that. Not many of us even want that. We’re just people living their lives and we want our Nation to be at peace.” Ty Lee was vehement in her defence but she had actually thought about this very little. Their upbringing was blanketed with the Fire Nation’s triumph. Even though Ty lee had traveled around the world with the Circus, the Fire Nation had always been the rightful winners in her mind. Now she saw two Fire Nations; the people living their lives who just so happened to have been born in the Fire Nation, and the oppressors, the tyrants, a category she pictured with Azula’s face.

* * *

The best times spent with Ty Lee were when she came over for sleepovers. She was around at the palace a lot because with six sisters, her house was always crowded and chaotic and she had to share a bedroom with three other sisters. Azula could not fathom why. Ty Lee came from a good, noble Fire Nation family; surely, they were able to afford a room for each of their daughters. In addition, Ty Lee’s parents never even noticed when she was gone. It was often convenient for Mai to visit too since her father needed her out of the way for political meetings and it was good to show the public that he had ties to the Royal Family. So, from the age of six onwards, Ty Lee and Mai were regular visitors to Azula’s home.

They would go to Azula’s bedroom, the four of them because Zuko oddly didn’t have any of his own friends and her mother commanded Azula to accommodate him. They put on plays. Ursa had taken Azula and Zuko to see the Ember Island Players perform Love Amongst the Dragons and even though Azula didn’t really understand the plot, they tried to imitate it.

“Mai, you have to,” seven-year-old Ty Lee begged Mai. “You need to be the Dragon Empress.”

“No,” said Mai, not even glancing up from the book she was reading in the corner.

“I want to be the Dark Water Spirit,” said Zuko, holding up the mask to his face and growling at them. Ty Lee let out a squeak of alarm.

“No, you can’t be the Dark Water Spirit, Zuzu; we need a boy to play the Dragon Emperor.”

“Why don’t you do it, Azula? The Ember Island Players have girls playing boys all the time.”

Therefore, Azula and Ty Lee played the Dragon Emperor and Empress, Zuko played the Dark Water Spirit, and they convinced Mai to occasionally chime in with sound effects. Ty Lee made the performance much more exciting by adding in a bunch of cartwheels. Their only witnesses were Ursa and a few servants who enthusiastically clapped for them, but Azula thought she noticed her mother’s eyes watering.

Ty Lee always made her presence known in the palace before even reaching Azula, through her loud, perky voice.

“Hi Zuko! Did you know my friend Mai likes you?” Azula heard from outside her bedroom. She did not hear her brother’s response but then Zuko was rather quiet in those days.

Azula and Ty Lee would chase each other up and down the corridors, Ty lee doing flips and Azula doing tricks with her firebending. One time, they pulled down an ornamental curtain and tied it from the ceiling for Ty Lee to swing from. They got in so much trouble for that.

Everything about Ty Lee was so wonderful. She was so patient and kind with Azula in a way no one else had ever been. When Azula was rude or had a tantrum, she always forgave her. She talked to Azula openly, like a real person, and always hugged her. Azula could not remember anyone else hugging her in her life, but then she also was not sure she would have allowed anyone else to do so. She had pretty dark eyes that shone and even though all her sisters were identical to her, Azula maintained Ty Lee looked better than the others, because she was the kindest, there was something bright in her. Maybe that was what an aura was.

Mai fell asleep early on in the night, leaving Ty Lee and Azula awake to giggle and chat. The next morning, they would wake up with their heads resting on each other’s shoulders.

The last time they fell asleep in such a fashion was the night before Ty Lee left for the circus.

* * *

“I just wanted you to know we never would have won the War without you.” Katara approached Ty Lee at a reunion party six months after the War to say this. Ty Lee wanted desperately to be a part of Team Avatar, and indeed, she had been invited to all their gatherings and dinners after the end of the War, but she wasn’t connected to them in the way the others were. The only person she really knew was Mai, and Mai was mainly linked to the group through Zuko. Therefore, her only attachment was already an outlier.

“Me? But I was still a prisoner during the final battle.” Her cheery tone was incongruous with the traumatizing memory she spoke of.

“But you turned against Azula, so she didn’t have you at her side when Zuko and I were fighting her. I don’t know what we would have done if you had been chi-blocking us and Mai throwing knives at us.”

Mai would never hurt Zuko. “Then it was thanks to me _and_ Mai.”

“I don’t know, I think your betrayal was what broke her. Not that I think it was a bad thing, what you did. Zuko said she mutters your name sometimes, going on about her friend Ty lee. We could only battle her because she was so fragile and so all over the place. I think what you did there was very brave. I know how hard it is, when it’s someone you trust.”

“Really?” Ty Lee tilted her head.

“Yeah. It was about a year ago when we were in the Earth Kingdom. We met this group of Freedom Fighters and their leader was called Jet. I know, what a stupid name. And it’s so silly, but I might have had a bit of a crush on him. I guess it’s not really the best comparison to Azula. See, I hadn’t been around many boys my age. For years, the only teenage boy I ever saw was Sokka.” Katara pulled a face. “So, it was very easy for me to get a crush on any boy I met, you know? Well, Jet’s family were killed by Fire Nation soldiers and he was seeking revenge by killing anyone from the Fire Nation he came across. Sokka realized this and tried to warn me but I didn’t listen, but it turned out he was right. I was furious with Jet. It’s hard, when you look at someone through rose-tinted glasses.”

“Rose is my favorite color,” said Ty Lee.

Katara chuckled. “Exactly.”

“Did Jet know you liked him and pretend to like you back to manipulate you?”

“No, I don’t think so. It seemed like he actually did like me and was trying to impress me. He just thought I’d have the same vision of the world as him.”

Ty Lee later heard all about Jet and the tragic fate that befell him. Despite all of his crimes, he supposedly died a hero.

* * *

The first time Ty Lee and Azula’s lips touched was cold and stale. It tasted of teenage inexperience and the calm before a storm.

They were without Mai for the first time in months but would soon follow her to the Boiling Rock.

Ty Lee pretended it was impulsive but it was actually something she thought about for a long time and looked for the perfect opportunity. It might have been the bravest thing she had ever done, to dare touch the Fire princess in such an intimate way. She had a list of excuses at the ready; that it was how they wished friends good luck in her family, that she had wanted to give her a good kiss after the disaster with Chan, and Azula could pretend she was a boy if she wanted.

“Azula, I need to do something. Close your eyes.”

Not a peck but it could hardly be called a kiss either. It was just a prolonged pressing of two mouths together. In those seconds, Azula did not move, did not speak. She did not lash out or pull away, but she also did not press herself in closer.

* * *

“Poor Zuko! Did Firelord Ozai really burn his face?”

“He was weak,” Azula responded, skimming a stone across the water.

“Don’t say that, Azula! He’s your brother. I argue with my sisters and think I hate them sometimes but I’d never want that to happen to them. She did wonder about it for a minute though. Obviously, it would be a terrible, terrible thing to happen to any of them but if she had a burn people would know her from her sisters. Mind you, she didn’t know what a burn looked like, especially over someone’s eye. It must be so nasty and sore. Some people reported he had lost an eye. Others said half his face was gone. Ty Lee tried to imagine Zuko with a big burn on his face. She couldn’t.

“Do you think he’ll ever come back?”

“He can try. He thinks he can find the Avatar to restore his honor. Well, good luck to him, but the Avatar hasn’t been seen in over a hundred years. While he’s gone, I’m heir to the throne.”

Ty Lee didn’t know what to say. This was one of those moments which had become more and more frequent, wherein Azula’s moments of poor behaviour fell outside of what was normal for an eleven year old into something darker. Maybe she was just trying to deal with the hurt she felt; first her mother left and then her brother! She was just channeling the pain through a negative receptacle.

So, all Ty Lee said was “I’m thinking of joining the circus.”

* * *

“What on earth is _this_?!” Ty Lee’s father shoved a piece of paper in her face and the young girl started to cry at his raised voice.

“It’s a card I made for Azula.” She had spent all night on it. It depicted her friend with her fabulous hair, the fire in her hand illustrated by smudged crayon, a big heart drawn around her.

“Azula? Is that Princess Azula? She’s in Ty Lee’s grade, isn’t she?” her dad asked her mom and her mom nodded. “Why did you draw her like this?”

“Her hair is pretty and I want to show her how beautiful I think she is.”

Her card was tossed in the fireplace and Ty Lee cried with greater intensity. “You can carry on playing with Princess Azula but I don’t want to see anything else like this or hear you talking like that anymore. Do you understand?”

That night, she heard her parents arguing and crept down the stairs to listen in. Ty Lat and Ty Woo followed her.

“Well, young girls are affectionate with each other like that. It’s innocent. She doesn’t know it’s wrong.”

“But she wanted to give it to Princess Azula. Princess Azula! We already had so much chaos when they found out about my cousin Jae. Imagine what it would do to the family with our own daughter! What if they _killed_ her?!”

There was a pause, presumably her mother going to comfort her father. Ty Lee didn’t understand what they were arguing about at all.

“I know. We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. Still, I can’t believe it, our little Ty Lee friends with Fire Lord Azulon’s granddaughter!” 

* * *

Ty Lee learned more about herself from the Kyoshi Warriors than she had in all her fifteen years.

“We don’t compete with other women, well, not unless they’re actually attacking us,” said Hikari.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you remember when you were fighting us that time? I could never forget what you said to us. We were fighting and the only thing you could think to say was ‘you’re not prettier than us.’ As if that was why we were fighting. As if that was at the heart of every argument between girls.”

Ty Lee didn’t know what to say. She didn’t know why she’d said it. She could barely remember saying it.

“There’s more than being pretty, you know, Ty lee. You’re strong and fast and talented and just a really nice person.”

Ty Lee taught them how to block chi. “You’re getting so good at it!” Ty Lee showed them the diagram she had drawn up again. All the pressure points of a person’s body to be jabbed repeatedly with light nimble pokes.

“This is kind of like our fighting style,” said Hikari. “It’s not about who’s the strongest; it’s about being cunning, using their weaknesses against them.”

“Yes, that’s exactly it!”

A bell rang, signifying all of the prisoners were needed inside. That was strange. Their outdoor time shouldn’t be over yet. The Kyoshi Warriors, Ty Lee and Mai lined up.

“You know,” Hikari whispered over her shoulder. “You’d make a pretty good Kyoshi Warrior. If we ever get out of this, what do you say? A new start?”

No cause had ever spoken to her like this before. “I’d love to!”

A voice boomed over the speakers. “ _The Avatar has defeated Firelord Ozai! The war is over!_ ”

* * *

At twelve, Ty Lee was the youngest in the traveling circus. Early in her stay there, the ringmaster approached her. “Pretty little thing, aren’t you?” He pointed to her dark eyes and gold-tinted hair, a rare combination in the Fire Nation, asked her if she was sure she didn’t have any ancestry from another nation. She loved being in the circus, but the ringmaster reinforced with her that if she wanted to stay, she had to dazzle the crowds.

She had to compete with the other female performers for the attention of the audience. Pretty was everything here. Yes, she had to be agile and flexible but above all else, pretty, pretty for the boys and men watching her. None of the other women here could be her friends. She studied what attracted boys the most, learned to heighten her already cheery personality, never frowning, making herself as innocent as possible, fluttering her eyelashes and giggling. She felt uneasy when older boys and even sometimes grown men approached her – she was only twelve after all – but she pushed it all down for the sake of giving a good show. After all, if these men did go too far, she could always chi block them.

It hurt so much when Azula called her a tease two years later.

Her looks had what she perceived as the intended effect because often, boys would wait around outside her personal tent after shows. They were her fans and it made her feel noticed. She kissed a few of them. Her first kiss was with one of these fans, with an Earth Kingdom boy called Diyan who genuinely seemed to respect her. Not all of them were so respectful. When he called her beautiful, her confidence doubled. That was all she wanted after all. Unfortunately, the Circus moved on the next day, and she was left wondering if he had actually liked her and wanted to get to know her, or whether he just wanted to boast to his friends that he had kissed the pretty acrobat girl.

* * *

Ty Lee was charged with guarding Azula in her cell. It had been two years since Azula saw her last. Ty Lee looked so different. Her face had always been so youthful, round and soft, with big glowing eyes set right in the middle, and dimples all around her mouth. Now her face was...harder, imperturbable.

“Ah, my old friend Ty Lee. Come to visit me after all this time?” No response. “You look different. I like the makeup. I thought the whole point was you want to be individual and now I can’t tell you apart from those other warriors. Very individual. What, nothing to say to me?”

“I’m not scared of you anymore, Azula.”

There we go. Now she had her attention. “Scared?”

“You used fear to control me and Mai.”

“Oh, was it fear you felt towards me? Funny, I remember it differently.” She put on a high-pitched voice. “‘Oh, Princess Azula, you’re so perfect. Princess Azula, your hair is so pretty. Princess Azula, I adore you!’” Azula wasn’t so pretty now. After a while, she had grown to stop caring about that.

“Stop it! You won’t get to me, Azula. I know you. You don’t care about anyone.”

How could she make such a claim?

“You think I didn’t care? You’re the only person I’ve ever apologized to. Remember, on Ember Island?”

“No.”

“I’d never hurt you.”

She scoffed. “You locked me in prison. You commanded my safety net at the circus be set on fire. Yes, I know that was you.”

“I knew you wouldn’t fall. You’re too good.”

“No.”

Azula stepped towards Ty Lee. Her hands were bound. It was so degrading, being unable to firebend. However, in this instant, she was not planning to attack. She pressed her chest into Ty Lee’s armor. She was short for her age. Mai had always been the tallest of their trio but Ty Lee was several inches taller too. The difference had never really mattered before: Azula made up for it with heeled boots and an overall majestic presence. Now she had to stand on tiptoes to come close to Ty Eee’s face. There was still plenty of space for Ty Eee to dodge her or to push her away or chi block her, but Ty Lee’s hands remained rooted to her sides. She did nothing other than – maybe it was a trick of the light – move her face in a fraction closer. What was this feeling? A craving for human contact again. To return the kiss they had never spoken about.

Azula did not know much about kissing. She was inexperienced in that regard, but Ty lee sucked on her lips with ferocity, so hard she even bit down at one point. If Azula could move her hands, she would have cupped her face.

When Ty Lee loosened her hold, Azula backed away. She smirked, an expression somewhere between satisfaction and spite. The bright pink of Ty Lee's cheeks peeked through her white face paint.

“Leave me alone!” Ty Lee probably realised the fault of her words; Azula couldn’t go anywhere. She sprinted out of the cell and soon someone else came to watch her.

* * *

The skipping rope stopped in front of Kiyi’s foot and the small girl let out an overdramatic groan. “I was so close!” she cried.

“It was good. You did eight jumps! That’s great! You couldn’t even do one when we started.” Ty Lee held out her hand for a high five which Kiyi jumped up to reach. Meanwhile, footsteps became audible in the hall outside and within a few moments, the grand door opened and the young Firelord and his mother walked in.

“Thanks for taking care of her,” said Ursa as Kiyi hobbled over to her. “What do you say, Kiyi?”

“Thank you, Ty Lee.” Kiyi leapt into her mother’s arms. She was getting used to Ursa’s new face, back to being affectionate to her. Ty Lee couldn’t believe it when she heard the story of what had happened to Ursa in the last seven years. It was beyond all imagination. When Ursa got back though, she still remembered Ty Lee.

Ursa escorted Kiyi away and Ty Lee and Zuko were left alone in the old playroom.

“It’s so great your mom’s back, Zuko! And you have a new little sister!” She didn’t think before saying it but the words sunk in.

“How’s Mai?” he asked.

“It’s hard to tell with Mai but I think she’s happy.” The number of times Mai and Zuko had broken up was ridiculous. It got to a certain point that one had to wonder why they would even consider getting back together. If they knew they hadn’t worked before, why try again? Ty Lee liked Zuko but she liked Mai’s new boyfriend too.

“Just tell me. Get it over with.”

“Azula ran away. We searched for weeks but we couldn’t find her.”

Ty Lee turned away and covered her eyes. It felt like the palace was closing in, as if she were in an underground cave rather than here.

“I’m sorry, Ty Lee.”

“I knew. As soon as you let her go, I knew it was a bad idea. I knew she hadn’t changed and I knew she’d get away. The whole time you were gone, I was always looking over my shoulder. I was sure she was going to come for me and get me back for betraying her. And now I’m so, so scared.”

“We’ll have the best guards—”

“No, Zuko. I know you’re the Firelord and I’m not meant to speak to you like this but we’ve known each other long enough. I won’t feel safe again until Azula is back in prison where she belongs.”

* * *

Tying up her hair, Azula froze when she noticed Ty Lee watching her intently in the mirror in the girls’ bathroom.

“Why are you staring at me like that?”

“You do your hair so well. Can you do my hair?”

Azula had only ever done her own hair and was not sure if she would be able to do it on anyone else. Her hair always had to be perfectly in place, the same style every day with her ceremonial headpiece on top. But she acquiesced, for Ty lee, with her wide, pleading eyes.

“Of course, I’ll do your hair, Ty Lee. I am the best at it after all.”

When it was down, Ty Lee’s hair was longer than Azula’s, thicker and wavier. Azula braided it back, careful that the three strands she used were the same size and not a hair fell out of place while she was weaving them together. Ty lee did usually wear her hair in a braid after all. However, this one was a different kind of braid. First of all, it was neater, it was tied higher up, and Azula had let two large strands frame Ty Lee’s face.

“One more thing. Keep your eyes closed.” A vase of flowers rested on the sink to provide decoration in the bathroom. Azula pinched one of the flowers off its stem and tucked it into Ty lee’s hair tie. “Okay, open your eyes.”

“Oh, thank you, Azula! I love it! I’m going to wear it like this every day.” She wrapped her arms tightly around her and Azula nestled her head in Ty Lee’s shoulder.

“My pleasure.”

* * *

The Boiling Rock. Ty Lee’s knife-wielding friend poised herself to fight the most talented firebender of their generation who was also Ty Lee’s friend. And although Mai and Azula barely acknowledged her, she was at the biggest crossroads of her life. Ty lee had the power to decide who would win this skirmish.

She had thought she would see the end of the war with the Fire Nation victorious and Azula succeeding in her quest. She had thought the three of them would be at each other’s sides when it was over, and that the loyalty to her friends was the strongest of all. Actually, she didn’t know what she expected to come with the end of war but seeing Azula turn against Mai like this and seeing Azula almost kill her own brother cleared her vision.

“I guess you just don't know people as well as you think you do. You miscalculated. I love Zuko more than I fear you.”

“No, _you_ miscalculated! You should have feared me more!”

She felt like she was ascending from her body. Was this what it was to enter the Spirit World? The instinct was in her all along, something deep below all the love she had for her best friend.

She made a firm jab to Azula’s body. Azula collapsed to the ground.

Ty Lee and Mai were dragged away by guards. As Ty lee looked back over her shoulder, she saw those angry golden eyes, the same eyes worn by that sweet five-year-old she met for the first time ten years before. And although Azula smiled menacingly, Ty Lee could have sworn behind those eyes she saw something fracture at this betrayal.


	2. part ii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, an angsty part 2. I hope anyone reading is doing well during this lockdown. I myself have been watching the show again. You might have noticed it now says there are three parts. Basically, the present day section was turning out to be so long that I've decided to divide it in 2 which means this story will hopefully have 3 parts in total.  
> One final note is that I've been reading the comics. I know they're a bit controversial in the fandom but I do enjoy them and I like that we get a continuation of the story. That being said, I'm not such a big fan of Azula's characterisation in Smoke and Shadow, especially when a redemption arc started to be set up for her in the Search, so I've only referenced events in the Search (Ursa being found). I'm not dismissing Smoke and Shadow as canon, I'm just not going to mention it.  
> Anyway, enjoy!

Kyoshi Island, Winter 103 AG.

The girl scurried back to the lair she had built for herself in the woods. It was debasing having to live like this, in a shelter constructed from sticks with a canopy woven from leaves, but she had done it before.

This time she was followed. Rangi, a young Kyoshi warrior, noticed a hand slinking through the kitchen window and whisking away a slice of platypus-bear earlier. Rangi needed to earn some respect from the older girls and thus decided to go after this thief.

When her torchlight shone on her, Rangi could make out the figure of the girl. She was disturbingly skinny, sharp limbs and elbows like the tips of knives. She wore the ragged clothing of an Earth Kingdom peasant but she did not look like she was from the Earth Kingdom. Unkempt black hair hung down over her face and in that brief glimpse, it seemed haphazardly cut. What caused Rangi to run away was what the girl did with her torch. The fire from it leapt in her direction, drawn to her fingers like metal to a magnet. Her eyes flashed gold. Rangi ran back to the village.

“Firebender! Firebender!” With the world’s war trauma still fresh, firebending was stigmatized. Yes, one of the more respected Kyoshi warriors was from the Fire Nation, but she was kind and calm in temperament. Naturally, these cries caused a panic and the alarm was sounded.

She was curled up under the bed when she heard someone come into the room. A pair of feet padded across the ground in front of her. No, not feet; hands. It was her.

Now was the time. She was scared. Ha, scared. That she was able to realize this was a sign of how she had changed. She had to get out from under the bed.

She rolled out and stood up. The girl had flipped over and was now standing normally with her back to her. She had not noticed her and was facing a mirror.

“Hello Ty Lee.”

Ty Lee let out a squeal and spun around. She had been in the process of wiping off her Kyoshi makeup with a cloth and now had a rather comical look with half her face still in pristine condition and the other still marked with smudged patches of white face paint. Seeing Azula, she threw aside her cloth and whipped a fan out of her belt. A full blown Kyoshi Warrior now.

“Suki!” Ty Lee screamed.

“Don’t call for help. I just want to talk to you.”

“Suki!”

“You can block my chi if you want, if it would make you feel safer.” This was exactly what Ty Lee did and Azula instantly fell flat on her face. She hadn’t put up a fight but she had not expected it to happen so quickly. She hoped she would be able to get a few words in before she was made powerless.

“Ty Lee—”

The door burst open and from where she lay, Azula could just see the new arrivals. There was that girl Suki; Azula had teased her and prodded her for information when she was a prisoner at the Boiling Rock, and Suki in turn had stood guard for her in the institution, that horrible place. She was dragging along a young man with floppy hair by the arm and it took Azula a few moments to recognize Sokka of the Water Tribe. So the two of them were still a happy couple. It had been nearly four years since she last saw him and fought with him. How old must they both be now? Nineteen? Twenty? Suki wore a dressing gown, her auburn hair was messy and her face without its makeup was red. Likewise, Sokka’s floppy hair was down and falling in his eyes, and he was only wearing a pair of shorts and a loose shirt that clearly belonged to his girlfriend. They were not happy to have been disturbed during their private time.

“Is that—” asked Sokka.

“Yes,” said Ty Lee. She tried to stop herself crying. She thought she had put an end to that until now. “She just appeared in my room.”

“How did she get here?”

“I don’t know. No one’s heard anything from her in over a year.”

“I’ll go send a message to Zuko.”

“No, Sokka! You can’t tell Zuko! He has a soft spot for her and he’ll put people in danger again!”

“But Zuko’s the Firelord.”

“Babe, let me handle this, okay?” said Suki. She turned back to Ty Lee. “Alright, we won’t tell Zuko, but we should call for some backup. Is there anyone you’d be alright with us sending for?”

Ty Lee sighed. “Mai.”

“Alright. Mai it is. Sokka, go and send a messenger hawk to Mai. I’ll get the other girls. We’re going to need to be on high alert.”

* * *

Azula was in a cell again. At the sound of footsteps, she raised her head with just a tinge of excitement, but it was only Suki, returning with two Kyoshi Warriors she did not know.

“Where’s Ty Lee?”

“She doesn’t want to see you and she doesn’t have to.”

“I want to talk to her. Don’t I have a right to speak?”

“You forfeited that right when you went around attacking people.”

“Still getting worked up over things from years ago?”

“It was just last year you tried to kill your mom and sister. A year? Old wounds don’t heal so fast. Your brother was banished for three years. He’ll have that burn on his face for the rest of his life. The War lasted a hundred years. It took over a year for Ty Lee to stop crying herself to sleep at night. But go ahead, tell me how all that happened a year ago is forgotten.”

“So, what are you now? Her protective big sister?”

“Yes, I’m protecting her because that’s what girls do for each other. At least, that’s what they’re meant to do.” Azula feared this was a not-so-sly dig at herself.

“I mean you no harm.”

Suki laughed so hard and sardonically she snorted. “It’s a bit late for that.”

“You gave my brother another chance. You gave Ty Lee another chance.”

“Yeah well, there are only so many chances to give.”

Azula sighed. “I know. I came here to get better.”

“That’s a change of heart. What brought that about?” Azula didn’t answer. “I thought not.”

“I want—I _would like_ to speak to Ty Lee. She doesn’t have to right not but when she is ready, I would like to talk to her. Please.” Politeness and niceties sounded unnatural in her voice and Azula knew it. Growing up in a palace, she had never seen her father be polite to anyone and she in turn had never felt a need to be.

* * *

When Mai stepped off her boat in the harbor, Ty Lee raced towards her and flung her arms around her with such vigor her feet lifted off the ground. Mai had given up asking Ty Lee stop hugging her because Ty Lee seemed to forget this every time they were reunited. Ty Lee regretted that they had grown so distant. It was the inevitable outcome of Ty Lee training to be a Kyoshi Warrior while Mai remained in the capital. Still, all their missed time was made up for whenever they did meet up again. They could talk together for hours (well, Ty Lee did most of the talking) and would be utterly inseparable until it was time for them to separate again. How she wished this reunion could be the same!

“Mai! I’m so happy you’re here!”

“I hope it’s more interesting here than it is back home. I’d rather walk into the middle of the desert than spend another day there.” Ty Lee laughed, considerably louder than what felt natural. “Alright, enough greetings. What’s been going on with her?”

“Well, Suki thinks she might have supporters ready to ambush us and free her.”

“She wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t let herself be captured in the first place. What’s she been saying?”

“Apparently, she won’t talk to anyone except for me.”

“And have you talked to her?”

“No. You know I can’t, I—”

“You’re still scared of her?”

Ty Lee nodded. “Aren’t you?”

“I don’t know. I think getting over it a bit came from realizing we’d never been her friends at all. She didn’t care about us; she just needed us so she could feel powerful. And I realized that she’d never been _my_ friend either.” Ty Lee was uneasy about Mai’s emphasis.

“Don’t you think you were even friends when we were little? She seemed so much nicer than.”

“I suppose maybe I liked her when we were very little kids, or maybe I just wanted to call myself the friend of the princess. She was already teasing us when we were eight or nine.”

Didn’t all small kids tease each other? Azula used to boast to them that her father said she was ‘born lucky’. Had she been born evil as well, and Ty Lee just not noticed?

“When I realized, maybe I stuck with her because I was scared what would happen if I left. At least she stopped life being so dull for a while.”

Had Azula really never considered Ty Lee a friend? Not even when they were children? Then there had been that time at the beach on Ember Island; for one serene weekend they had moved away from the war that was constantly instilled in the lives of noble children of the Fire Nation. They became a regular teenage friendship group, albeit one that was considered weird by other teenagers and had wrecked the home of some popular boys.

Why was she even wondering if they had ever been friends in the first place? A part of her conscience seemed to want to defend Azula. No, she would not go there. Azula hurt Ty Lee beyond all imagination. She threw her in prison. It didn’t matter if Azula ever cared about her because that stopped a long time ago. Any perceived affection later on was just Azula manipulating her.

Ty Lee still hadn’t told anyone the recent realization she’d had about herself, how her affection for Azula when they were fourteen had been something more than platonic. Mai didn’t know yet about Ty Lee liking girls but she would probably hear about Ty Lee’s brief relationship with Hikari (if it could even be called a relationship) soon enough.

For now, Ty Lee leaned against her friend with whom she had such a shared experience and tried to forget how the subject of so many of her regrets was on this island with them.

* * *

Just as Ty Lee, Mai, Suki and Sokka were sitting down to have a quiet dinner together, a knock came at the door. In walked Hikari and the two other warriors who had been guarding Azula that afternoon.

Hikari bowed to them. “Apologies for interrupting. She’s out of control.”

“What happened?” Suki beckoned them over and gestured for them to sit down.

“She was crying and banging her head on the floor. We had to hold her down so she wouldn’t hurt herself. She couldn’t even see us,” said Hikari.

“Do you think she might have been faking?”

“I don’t know.” Ty Lee’s first instinct was to say no. Pretending wasn’t something Azula would do. But then what did she know of what Azula would do? She had been wrong about her before and she had not been close with her for years. Azula was a liar. Ty Lee needed to hold fast to that.

“We can’t hold her here forever. I don’t know how much longer we can deal with her,” Hikari admitted reluctantly.

“Shouldn’t we just hand her over to the Fire Nation? Zuko is her brother and—”

“We’re not getting Zuko, Sokka!” yelled Ty Lee.

“Ty Lee’s right.” Suki put a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “We can handle this without Fire Nation intervention. We can’t let word about her being here get out.” Already they had had enough trouble trying to stop news of a firebender being in the village after little Rangi had spotted Azula in the woods the other night and screamed about her. They weighed up the possibilities of how the different nations would react. The Earth Kingdom despised her and the people of Ba Sing Se were clamouring for her blood. She was the first person to have broken through their walls and had conquered their city, robbed them of the Dai Li. They might try her which would no doubt result in a harsh sentence if not execution, or an assassin might be sent for her before they had the chance. On the other hand, there were still supporters of Ozai in hiding in the Fire Nation. If news of her location spread to them, they might hail her as a leader, a figurehead, and come to save her, if that was not already her aim in being here. Then there was Ty Lee’s great concern that Zuko would hear and let her go again, let her run off and cause more pain and mayhem.

Ty Lee spoke up. “Is she still asking to speak to me?”

“She hasn’t asked in a while but she still hasn’t spoken to anyone else.”

“Do you think it would help if I spoke to her?”

“It might give us some clue what she’s doing here that can advise us on what the next step is.”

“She could always lie,” Ty Lee murmured.

“True. You don’t have to speak to her at all. We can find another way around it. Who knows? She might get bored of us not giving her any attention and eventually speak.”

Suki didn’t know how stubborn Azula was. “No. I need to face my fears. Cleanse my aura. I’ll see her.”

* * *

“She says she won’t talk unless you’re alone.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t have to do this. Or we could try to negotiate with her—”

“No, it’s alright.” What could Azula possibly have to say to Ty Lee alone? Perhaps in a twisted way it was for the better; Ty Lee might be able to be more open with her when there weren’t strangers to their friendship infringing on them.

“Okay. We’ll be right outside. Just shout if anything happens.”

The cell was cold. It was bigger than the one Azula had been in at the institution, the one Ty Lee visited her in two years ago. Suki knew she had come out of that encounter severely shaken but did not know the exact details of what had occurred. No one would believe it. Since then, the only other time she had seen Azula was about a year ago, just before she set off with Zuko to find Ursa. They did find Ursa but lost Azula in the process.

Azula raised her head. “Ty Lee,” she murmured. Her voice was like cold fingers brushing the back of your neck. Surprised, pleased to see her, playing games.

She was so thin. She would be eighteen now but she looked so much younger in such a frail frame. All points and sharp edges. Her dark hair was unyielding, tangled and matted, halfway down the small of her back. Azula never used to allow herself to be seen with her hair down.

Ty Lee tried to stand firmly and held her chin up. She kept one hand on her hidden fan and the other clenched at her side.

“Yes, it’s me. Why did you come here Azula?”

“I’ve said; to see you.”

“Well, I don’t want to see you.”

“Yes, because your life here is so perfect now, you can’t have crazy old Azula coming in and ruining it.”

“You’re always so mean.”

“I’m not trying to be mean. I’m trying to get better. To be better.”

“Suki said you keep saying that. What does that mean?”

“I know I’m sick. There’s something inside me. So much anger and regret and jealousy.” There was something knew in Azula’s voice. For a moment, her confident outer form fell away and there was a shade of despair over her tone. “I suppose I’ve finally embraced the monster my mother saw I was. I thought maybe I’d get better if I changed and became like one of you nice people.”

“And you can’t change on your own?” said Ty Lee with steel in her voice. She turned her back to her.

“So, you’re telling me if I’d come to you and told you I was a better person, you would have believed me?”

Ty Lee didn’t answer. “Why did you come to me?”

“Who else but my best friend?”

Ty Lee laughed, a cruel, cold laugh she never would have imagined herself mustering until today. “You came here because you thought I was weak, that I’d believe you right away. You couldn’t go to Zuko because he already gave you the benefit of the doubt and you betrayed him again. Tried to kill your own mom and sister!”

“I came here because you were one of the people I needed to make amends with the most.”

“You’ve been missing a year. Where were you?”

“Traveling with some people. They left me. It’s a bit of a pattern for me; being abandoned. I guess we all know why.”

“So, you’re blaming me for ‘abandoning’ you?”

“Believe me. I want the hurt to stop.” Now she shouted, a radical change to her former calm demeanor. Ty Lee panicked and prepared to take out her fan but Azula did not move. Her hands were still locked in chains to stop her firebending. If she didn’t try to hurt Ty Lee, she might try to hurt herself again. “You have to believe me!”

Ty Lee watched the fallen villain crouching on the stone floor, her taunting eyes reflecting the torchlight back at her. She was an actress. “I don’t believe you.” Without another word, she turned and walked out.

Azula called after her. “I’m not going to hurt you or anyone. How long are you and your girlfriends going to keep me locked away down here like a petty thief?”

Azula was trapped in people’s previous perceptions of her. She knew they would all remember her face creased up, tears flowing, lipstick smudged all over the place. She could insist all she wanted that she had changed, that she was a different person, but she was never going to be free of the shell of Firelord Ozai’s mad daughter.

Ty Lee returned to where Suki and Mai waited for her outside. At any other time, it might have been self-esteem boosting to have her two best friends at her side, so ready to defend and protect her.

“What did she say?”

“She was…apologizing.”

Mai snorted with laughter.

“She said she was sorry and she knew what she’d done was wrong and she wants to change.”

“And she had to tell that to you specifically? She’s insane!” Mai blurted out.

“I don’t think you should call her that,” Suki said softly. Once again, Ty Lee did not want to stick up for Azula but she felt the same as Suki. Insane was not the right word. It was a cruel word with an ugly aura, like places tainted with death, like putrid sludge from a polluted river.

“So she wants our help? I’m all for girls sticking up for each other but it’s your call on this, Ty Lee.” Suki looked at Ty Lee warmly and placed her hand on the small of her back.

“I don’t want to just give into her.”

“I know.”

“She wasn’t changed. She started shouting when I wouldn’t forgive her.” Ty Lee thought out loud a bit. “What could we do with her? I mean how long _can_ we keep her in that cell?” In the short term, there was no reason to have locked her up at all. Refugees came to their village and the priority of the people of Kyoshi Island was to provide them with shelters and comfort. Azula fitted that description; she could have gone to any Earth Kingdom village with a fake name and posed as just another refugee without any attached history. But she had come here where people did know her. With that shared history, she could not be treated as just another refugee. Justice was a necessity.

There had to be a way of balancing the two.

“We could move her to a room but make sure she can’t get out,” Ty Lee suggested. “If we had someone visit her in there and try to help her with her…seeing things, she’d be given a chance to prove herself.”

“Like therapy?”

“I know a woman in the next town over who studied psychology in Gaoling. I could bring her in to do a few sessions with her.”

* * *

Azula had thought she was better. Recovery however is not a straight line.

Fleeing the Fire Nation Capital, Azula had been traveling with a small group of followers. A few disgraced Fire Nation nobles, a few patients from the institution whom she had helped escape. They crossed into the Earth Kingdom and began a long journey. Where they had been heading, she could not recall. She wasn’t even sure they had had an intended destination.

A few days into their journey, she saw her mother again. Because she thought the hallucinations had stopped, she was convinced she was right there with her and broke down crying when no one in her party understood her. These little cracks spread and joined together, became more frequent. She was overcome by hazy visions, just like before. She saw her mother, she saw her father, she saw Zuko. She watched herself defeated by Katara and Ty Lee again and again and again. Her newfound allies were fed up of her slowing them down. They did not understand what she saw. All they saw was a means to take advantage of her.

They were passing through a swamp, just coming to the end. Crossing this unfamiliar landmass, each member of the party saw their own unique visions, but none so much as Azula. The bizarre atmosphere of the place seemed to heighten what was already hurting.

One night while she slept, her once-allies left and took everything with them.

Waking up alone and bewildered. There it was again; that knowledge that she had been abandoned, that any semblance of loyalty they’d had to her was an illusion.

Fortunately, she had been near enough the edge of the swamp that she found her way to an Earth Kingdom village within a few hours. She was going to stay out of people’s way until she could get back on her feet. She would sneak into the village every day and take a few supplies, setting up a camp on the outskirts where she would retreat for the night to face her demons alone. It was on a black patch of ground that nothing grew on. She did not know exactly what had happened there but from conversations overheard, she gathered it was the remnant of a skirmish with the Fire Nation.

The people here were happy. They had parades in the streets. When she, Ty Lee and Mai had been traveling through the Earth Kingdom, its people never struck Azula as happy. They were all so dreary. Perhaps it was due to the war having ended. It was more than three years ago; they should have gotten over it by now. That was what she thought at first. That burnt scar to the landscape seemed to them both a symbol of mourning and of pride; they had lost people during the War but they had endured and now their village lived on. And they hated the Fire Nation.

Yes, they hated them. It didn’t matter that the War was over, that the nations were in the process of uniting. Fire Nation soldiers did them irreparable damage. One evening, she spied on a mourning service. “Today marks four years since my sister died.” “My father was killed twenty years ago.” “My cousin was killed eleven years ago.”

Three days into her miserable existence in this village and she had been caught in the marketplace by a young girl. However, this girl was not there to accuse her of stealing. She asked if she could play a game with her. Usually, Azula would have scoffed or made a mean comment, but she was undercover here and could not draw attention to herself. So, she played a simple ball game with the girl, avoiding using her firebending for all she could because they did hate firebenders after all, so she perceived.

When the sun burned deep orange and lowered in the sky, the girl’s grandmother came outside to call her in, and saw Azula. She must have taken her for a peasant or a refugee, of which Azula was not proud. She said she had seen her in the market before and she made her up a bundle of food. Then she offered her a place to stay for the night. Azula had refused. Not out of disgust for her; that emotion was less prominent than it might have been. Rather, she was worried they might see her at one of her lower points. Lately, she had been prone to stirring in and out of sleep, to hallucinating during the night and shooting fireballs at them. If she was caught doing that, they would hate her or perhaps fear her. Whatever the case, within minutes the whole village would know who she was. She could not risk that.

She had to leave this village now. As she left the villagers with her new bag of food, she looked back over her shoulder. The old woman was hugging her granddaughter and presented her with a knitted scarf. What would it feel like to be held like that? She shook her head as if to blow away the unwanted thoughts. She could not go feeling sympathy for them. They did hate her and her people after all.

What people? Who did she belong to?

Later that night, she would throw away most of the food the woman gave her, convinced it was poisoned, and when she came to her senses again, all that remained was an apple.

Azula went on through small settlements, before she stumbled into a series of labyrinthine caves which she would later discover was called the Cave of Two Lovers. There was just one of her. Just her, alone in the darkness. The fire she conjured always went straight out. When she was confronted by more visions of her mother, she let them come. Maybe what she needed there and then was a parent’s comfort in her time of need.

No, her mother always hated her. She only loved Zuko. But then she had long ago realized her father didn’t love her either. She had been no more to him than a weapon, a pawn. His attention had more weight and was safer because as the favoured child, she was never in danger of banishment like Zuko had been. The more she kicked Zuko down, the more she rose in her father’s estimation.

And what had that gained her? Zuko had been banished for three years but now he was content and he was the Firelord and where he had once been friendless, now he had an enormous circle of friends. Meanwhile she had been locked away for years and discovered anyone she thought cared for her only remained by her side out of fear.

The war was over. What did she actually have to gain? She had done everything her father wanted but had come out on the bottom. Had she even wanted to be the Firelord? She could not find an answer.

Ty Lee appeared to her in those caves. She looked strange. Her eyes were wrong. It took her a moment to figure it out. Ty Lee’s eyes had been dark and beautiful and hopeful. These eyes were gold and cruel. Ty Lee with Azula’s eyes. Her outfit seemed to shift from pink sportswear to a green Kyoshi uniform.

In war there were victors and losers.

“ _How does it feel?_ ” this Ty Lee taunted. “ _Knowing my life turned out so much better after the war. And look at you._ ” This wasn’t the Ty Lee she remembered at all. In fact, chillingly, this Ty Lee was acting the way she used to. Did Ty Lee hold this much bitterness towards her? The ghostly Ty Lee cupped Azula’s face, mockingly. “ _You wanted me but you pushed me away. Now no one loves you._ ”

Azula covered her face and rolled into a ball. Who knew how long she had been in these caves now? “I want to be loved. I want to be better. I want to get better!”

Light was pouring in through the cracks between her fingers. She looked up. The Ty Lee-Azula hybrid was gone. All around her were lights that pointed the way out for her.

From the moment she was born, Azula’s destiny was rooted in winning the war. Now she didn’t know who she was. Maybe there was someone different inside her, waiting to rise from the ashes of Princess Azula, someone she had to discover. Maybe this new someone was capable of loving and being loved. Maybe if she sought forgiveness from those she had hurt, she would be capable of love.

She had to go to Kyoshi Island.

* * *

They provided Azula with a small bedroom located a few minutes away from the training studio. It was fitted with a wardrobe, not that she had any of her own clothes to store in it, and it had a bathroom included as well. They removed all sharp objects and anything that was easily flammable should she find a way of using her firebending abilities.

To make it secure, they had to get creative with few resources. Azula would wear cuffs on her wrists and ankles to prevent her firebending but would still be able to move freely within the room. The sliding door that opened onto the outdoors would usually be able to be locked by the owner from the inside and outside. They secured this door with cement and filled in the lock with it. If she somehow managed to break through this, an alarm would be triggered. Sokka, who had lately become an intrepid young inventor, had the idea of reinforcing the door with sheets of steel which only a very skilled metalbender would be able to tear down. He and a selected group of Kyoshi Warriors spent all day welding these steel sheets together and fixing them to the side of the building. They welded the windows shut but did not cover them so she still had natural light. The only other entrance to the room, a door which led out into a hallway, would be locked with Kyoshi Warriors standing shifts outside. They would let in the woman coming to visit her for therapy sessions and bring in enough food and water for her.

It still looked like a prison. It was a shame to have their beautiful village of Kyoshi Warriors blemished by this secure holding. But then Ty Lee reminded herself that this was the decision she had made, to keep Azula a prisoner humanely.

“Not bad if I do say so myself,” said Sokka when they were finished building. He spun his hammer in his hand and accidentally whacked himself in the face with the handle. Suki and Ty Lee erupted in giggles. Azula was in there now with Emiko, the psychologist from the next village over.

When Sokka left and it was only the two of them, Suki put her hand on Ty Lee’s shoulder and said, “I know it’s hard. I can’t know exactly what you’re going through but I’m here for you.” Did Suki suspect the additional reason why being with Azula again was so hard for Ty Lee?

Suki brushed back the hair that fell in Ty Lee’s eyes and kissed her on the cheek. Before she joined the Kyoshi Warriors, Ty Lee and Suki had engaged in physical combat together twice. Now they were the closest of friends. Ty Lee had had a bit of a crush on Suki. It was a natural result of having such a close friend who she knew was also attracted to girls. She believed something could have happened between them if she had wanted it to more. After all, although Suki was not seeing anyone aside from Sokka at the moment, she had seen other people during the course of their steady four years together. Their relationship was all the stronger for it. Ty Lee admired them but she wasn’t sure that was the type of relationship for her. It might work for some but she would prefer to just be with one person. Besides, nothing had ever felt the same as…

Emiko emerged from behind the authoritative locked door, carrying her notes. “I’ve dealt with some high up patients in my time but I never expected I’d be seeing the sister of the Firelord.”

“How was it”

“When I started talking to her she seemed normal, if a bit quiet. She was giving one word answers to everything I asked. She became angry and upset though. Started shouting. I’ll be honest, I didn’t really understand what she was talking about. She didn’t seem to be shouting at me at all. She wasn’t physically violent. She just started slamming her hands on the dresser and throwing things off it. You said she sees things?”

“Yes, it _seems_ like she does,” said Ty Lee. “Was it…Lady Ursa? Her mom,” she explained.

“It might well have been. Why?” It did not take a genius to realize Azula had a twisted need for her mother’s affirmation. “I see,” said Emiko. “When did Lady Ursa disappear?”

When had Firelord Ozai ascended to the throne? “I think around 95 AG.”

“Was this by any chance around the time her flames turned blue?”

Ty Lee had never drawn the connection before but yes, it must have been. It was easy to forget Azula’s fire had not always been its signature blue. “I think so.”

“Do you know when fire turns blue? Blue flames are much hotter than orange flames. It would take a lot of anger to cause that.” Azula had not seemed angry during the War, during their siege of Ba Sing Se. She must have kept it bottled up well because she had always seemed so collected and dignified. Now Ty Lee understood.

“Are you saying she was angry because her mom left?” She had never shown that either.

“That might have been something to do with it. Look, what I know is she has a lot of repressed anger. Maybe it would be best to help her let it out. Let her use some of her firebending—”

“No!” Ty Lee yelled out. “It’s too dangerous!”

“—in a controlled space. Otherwise it will all build up inside her until it explodes and who knows what will happen then.”

“She’s one of the most powerful firebenders in the world.” She had been able to deal with moving Azula out of her cell but every day, it seemed they were loosening the restrictions on her more and more.

“Ty Lee, be reasonable,” said Suki. “We’ll be able to contain her.”

“No! Mai would agree with me!”

“Mai isn’t a Kyoshi Warrior and she has no authority on the island.”

“Authority! I thought we were all meant to have a say. You said it was my call.”

“Emiko knows more about this than we do.”

“Um, should I go?” Emiko asked from where she stood awkwardly in the corner during this argument. She exited quietly.

“Why are you defending her?” Ty Lee shouted once she had left.

“I’m not. Emiko’s the expert on this. If she says it could be dangerous to keep her in that room twenty four seven then I’m going to listen to her. I need to do what’s safest for my people.”

“She locked you in prison.”

“So did _you_!”

Ty Lee felt like a blade had just been plunged into her heart. “Exactly. The more I see of her, the more I have to remember everything I’ve done. I don’t like remembering the effect she has on me, the way she can control people.”

“I know—”

“You’ve never known anyone like her!”

Suki put her hands on her hips. “Maybe this is part of the problem. You have this sort of hate worship of her, like she’s some kind of dark spirit, like there has never been and never will be anyone as dangerous as her. She might be a powerful bender but she’s still human, and a teenager too. Now listen. I know she hurt you and I’m trying to support you in this. I supported you to keep her here rather than hand her over to Zuko or to the Earth Kingdom. But there are pros and cons of every decision made. Letting her out for some exercise is one thing we’re going to have to deal with here. We’re not tyrants after all.”

“We’re not Azula,” Ty Lee mumbled, prompting an awkward laugh from Suki.

“I’m sure Sokka will be pleased to hear we have another building project for him.”

* * *

Azula was confused when Ty Lee and Suki came to her room. Were they moving her to another room? She had only just gotten here. Or maybe she had been here for days. Time was in fragments. Like just yesterday she had been talking to that woman they sent in for her, trying to keep her cool, even though she found her and her fidgety hands annoying. Then she remembered arguing with her mother, except it hadn’t really been her, she knew that once she was grounded again. And she had torn the drawers out of her chest and knocked everything off the dressing table and even though she had tried to fill the time sorting it out again, it did not seem to fit back into place. She was kneeling on the floor, trying to fit one of the drawers back into the chest when the door opened behind her.

“Is she…crying?” she heard Ty Lee’s light voice ask.

“It’s rude to talk about me as if I’m not here, Ty Lee,” she strained.

“Do you want to come out for some exercise?”

“What am I, an ostrich horse?”

“It’s important to keep fit.”

“Please, you two wouldn’t listen to me before when I said I needed help. Why would I believe you care about my wellbeing at all? You just want to humiliate me. Ugh stupid drawer!” She shoved it again. It fitted into the gap perfectly on one side, so why not on the other?

Ty Lee had been keeping further back then Suki, but now she edged forward with a fan raised at her side. “What’s wrong?”

“This chest is useless.”

“Why does it matter? You don’t have anything to keep in there anyway.”

“Thank you for the reminder,” she remarked, bitterly. Ty Lee was struck by her persistence, like how determined she had been as a child to complete complex gymnastics moves to prove herself to Ty Lee. She did look terribly small now. But she was not that little girl anymore.

“We can have someone fix it for you while you’re gone. Emiko suggested you get some fresh air.”

“What does Emiko know?”

“You asked for help getting better. That’s what we sent her here for,” replied Suki. Azula didn’t answer. She just grunted loudly and punched the drawer. She really was angry. Ty Lee had an idea.

“Come on, Suki,” she said, noncommittally. “Azula clearly doesn’t think she’s up to the challenge of beating us.”

“Are you so sure about that?” Azula stood swiftly, a perfect smile now on her small lips. “I’d like to see you _try_ to defeat me.” Ty lee moved aside as Azula came towards them. She would let Suki stand closest to her, chain her up again for the short walk. Behind Azula’s back, she winked at Suki.

Back in chains, they escorted Azula to a patch in the woods where younger girls came to train. Keeping her in the outdoors proved to be challenging. They hardly had limitless resources and could not afford to put aside so much time again. In the end, they built a simple fence around a clearing in the forest. It was high enough that she would not be able to jump over it, and slicked with cold oil to make climbing very difficult. The one thing they all dreaded was facing her fire again once her cuffs came off.

Ty Lee hung back, standing with Mai, who was doing everything in her power to avoid eye contact with Azula. Suki slid the key in and took off Azula’s cuffs. “I’m going to stand out of the way now so you can do some firebending. _Don’t_ try anything.”

Azula scowled. A small shower of blue sparks flew from her fingers before fizzling out. Feeble. Was that all she could manage? She shocked everyone and herself with a second attempt, shooting a streamlined path of fire straight from her palms and at a pile of dead leaves which were reduced to ashes. She brought back her elbow, ready to try again. This time, she jumped up in the air, attempting a small acrobatic feat. As her feet left the ground and the blue flames emerged from her hand, she let out an aggravated cry. Then she landed incorrectly on her knee with led to her falling onto her chest and grunting with pain.

She stood up and turned on her heel to face the three of them.

“What are you all staring at? This isn’t the traveling circus.” This was clearly not cathartic for her.

Suki crept up behind Azula, not wanting to provoke her. “I brought a punching glove. You could have a practice with that. Any of us can punch after all. Come on, what you got?”

She produced the glove and soon Azula was letting all of her anger out on it. Where before she had glowered at everyone who so much as laid eyes on her, she and Suki were exchanging smiles although they stopped when they became aware they were doing so.

After Azula had done about half an hour of punching, with Suki advising her on how she could improve her delivery and Azula actually listening to her, they engaged in some harmless sparring. After years without practice, she was not as good at fighting as she used to be, but maybe that was not such a bad thing, for an eighteen-year-old girl to be an imperfect fighter. It was still a very close match.

While Suki was taking a break, some younger girls came in to train. They saw Azula and stopped in their tracks. One of them finally approached her.

“Excuse me, are you that firebender Rangi saw?”

“Probably.”

“Can you show us some moves?” Ty Lee expected Azula to give another retort through gritted teeth about not being a circus act, but she sighed and relented. She charred a log this time.

“That,” she said, brushing off her shirt. “That’s how I vanquish my enemies.” She really didn’t know how to talk to children, but they were not intimidated by her. They thought she was funny. The children came up with a game for her to play with them, were she would shoot streams of fire around in a circle and they would have to jump over them, like a skipping rope. It looked terribly dangerous to Ty Lee, but the girls were excited for it and she did not want to spoil their fun. There was strain on Azula’s determined face. For once, the task she was focused on was trying her hardest _not_ to hurt anyone. The girls loved her. They would have been very young during the war and didn’t know much about her. They leaped up in the air to avoid her blue lash and giggled away. Ty Lee found herself laughing and covered her mouth. She would not be lenient with this master manipulator, this daughter of a mass murderer.

Meanwhile, Azula scrutinized the groups of girls. There at their epicenter, Ty Lee and Mai sitting with that girl Suki. They were so tight knit, so sweet with one another, so supportive. Azula had had a girl group once but they had never been friendly like that. She had never known a love like that and she had never been aware until now that something had been missing. Maybe she could have had a group like that, but she had sabotaged it. Maybe she was just unlovable.

Suddenly, there was a great absence in her heart that hurt like a hole in her chest. What was this? There was her father’s voice in her ear whispering to her that love was weakness. She did not want to hear him. She wanted a supportive friendship group like that and she had lost the one she could have had due to her own actions. An absence of something that had once been. Children grew less forgiving as they got older, or maybe there were only so many chances one had to stop being mean before it was the last straw.

Sometimes, Azula looked back on things she had done when she was younger and wondered why she had done them. Yet, those things she had done were not beyond the Azula that existed now. There was still an ingrained awfulness within her. She was still capable of being mean. She was not good yet. She never knew when that awfulness might slip out and solidify the view Ty Lee had of her.

It was nearly time for them to take Azula back inside. She looked mournfully at the trees she would not see for a few days.

“Wait!” Ty Lee shot up from her seat. “I want to fight her.”

Suki raised an eyebrow. “You mean _spar_ with her?”

“Yes. I’ll do it.”

“Are you sure that’s such a good idea?”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Okay. No firebending, Azula. And no chi-blocking either.”

Ty Lee and Azula circled each other, like the sun and moon in the sky. Who was the hunter and who was the prey? They held up their fists in preparation. Eventually, Azula made the first move but Ty Lee blocked her. Now they were engaged in a back-and-forth, each extending an arm, only for it to be halted in its path by the other. They were in the strangest state of synchronization two opponents had ever been in. Each seemed to predict every oncoming attack. They were like two dance partners, leading and guiding. Ty Lee bent Azula’s arm back and used the force to jump over her head. She tried to kick her from the side, which of course was not allowed as they were only supposed to be using their fists, and not too forcefully at that, but Azula rolled along the floor to dodge it. Ty Lee flipped behind her and landing in Azula’s way, tripped her. She grabbed her by the collar of her shirt and pushed her into the dirt, breathing onto her through flaring nostrils. Azula’s golden eyes shone at her, mocking her.

“Ty Lee!” Suki shouted.

“What is it you want from me, Ty Lee?” Both of their silences, their prolonged stares, were challenges in themselves.

Ty Lee let Azula go just before Suki and Mai reached her. “Sorry about that, Azula,” said Suki. Why was she apologizing to _her?_ It was Azula! “We’ll take you back to your room, but I think this was good. We’ll do this again soon.”

Mai followed Ty Lee on the path to the town square. “What was that all about?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

* * *

Ty Lee gripped the plate between her hands. She listened at the door and when she heard nothing, she panicked before realizing the door was thick enough that she shouldn’t be able to hear anything. She hadn’t been alone with Azula since she was still in a cell.

Today, she had offered to bring Azula her lunch. She had to ask Hikari as Suki would think she was crazy. She herself thought she was crazy. She didn’t know why she was doing this.

She drew in a breath and with all the stupid bravery she could muster, opened the door.

Azula crouched on the floor, making a stack of – what were those? – bottle tops. She wore only a borrowed Kyoshi bathrobe, far too big for her slender frame. Ty Lee flushed at having walked in on her in such a state. Her skin was noticeably cleaner and Ty Lee wondered if this was the first time she had washed since arriving here. However, her hair still hung down all over the place, untameable. She seemed to have attempted to tie it in an incomplete braid which it was too straggly and unruly for. It must be tough doing her hair because she did not have a mirror. They had gone out of their way to make sure she did not have one for fear she would break it and hurt herself. Indeed, she had destroyed much of the content of her bedroom.

“What a surprise,” said Azula. “Have you come to attack me again?”

“No, just to bring your lunch.” Ty Lee placed it on the dressing table rather than give it to Azula directly.

“Charming.”

“Apologies for yesterday. It was childish of me.”

“Is that the way the Kyoshi Warriors have got you talking?”

“What?”

“‘Apologies.’ That doesn’t sound like you.”

“Well, I’m happy here. I’ve found where I belong.”

“Yes, it’s so much better here than being with me, I know.”

“The others are starting to trust you. They think you are trying to get better.”

“But you don’t?” Ty Lee remained quiet. “What is it you’re hoping to get out of me? You keep saying you hate me, that you never want to see me again, only to keep engaging with me.”

“I don’t know, okay? You can’t always explain what’s going on in your head.”

“I know.” She brushed past Ty Lee and Ty Lee shivered. “If I were to guess, I’d say you want some form of closure from me that you don’t know how to receive. A part of you feels bad about betraying me so you want me to prove how terrible I am so you can justify it. What can I say, I’ve picked up some things from listening to that therapist woman drone on.”

“You’re horrible.”

“Fine, I’m horrible. But for the last time, I’m trying to change. Do you know what it does to a person when everything they’ve ever believed in comes crashing down? You weren’t there that day of the comet; the day the War ended. You don’t know what happened when I was…defeated.”

“Because you locked me in prison.”

“I did. So many things I didn’t want to know were true were flashing through my head that day. All my life, I needed to be the best for…Ozai.” She said his name with disgust. “I saw that he saw weakness in Zuko and I kicked him down more so I could rise up. That whole time I knew something was missing. I thought I’d finally be satisfied when I got there. Then I was finally on top of the world but I was alone. I broke. Then I was defeated. I was still unhappy and I still broke. The picture I had of the world was broken down and I knew my father didn’t love me.”

It was astonishing that Azula would admit all of this, something she might once have called weakness. Then again, she could easily be lying.

“You all got to have your perfect happily ever after, with villains like me defeated.”

“It wasn’t so perfect. Not everyone’s ready for the four nations to be united. There’s still so much work to do.”

“I was the big joke of the Fire Nation, forgotten in an institution – that really is just a fancy name for a prison - while you’ve been here on paradise island, shacking up with Soki and Sukka.”

“Okay, first of all, you know it’s Suki and Sokka. Secondly, what are you talking about?!”

“Well, you did always seem to have a bit of a crush on dear Sokka, and you have always struck me as being one of Kyoshi’s ladies, even before you joined here.”

“Kyoshi’s ladies?”

“Come on, you know what they used to say about Kyoshi and other women. Did you think I had forgotten your little experimentations with me?” This was the first time either of them had verbally come close to acknowledging what transpired between them.

How could she say such a thing? Ty Lee spun around and shouted at her. The words gushed out before she could stop them.

“I was in love with you, Azula! Do you know how long it took me to realize the way I felt about you? I could only admit it to myself a few months ago. I didn’t know it was possible for girls to be like that. I didn’t know why I wanted to kiss you when we were friends, and after the war, knowing the person you were, it hurt too much to think it had been you all along. I could have fallen in love with anyone but it had to be _you_. I loved you and you broke my heart! I’ll never be able to feel the same about anyone else.”

Azula was aghast. She must be faking her look of shock. “You loved me?” she repeated.

“Yes. Love. You wouldn’t know what that is. You knew it and you used it against me.” Ty Lee rubbed her face with her sleeve.

Azula wished she could go over there and comfort Ty Lee. If only she knew how. Even if she had, Ty Lee would not have taken kindly to it. “You’re wrong,” she said under her breath.

“What did you say?”

“You might have been confused for a long time, because you didn’t know it was possible, but I knew,” said Azula. “I saw my father send away the prisoners; men convicted because they loved other men. I jeered at them with him from when I was eight years old, even if I didn’t know why I was jeering. I think I knew about myself after that time we went to Ember Island. I was so jealous with all those boys talking to you but I didn’t know why. Then I felt nothing when I kissed a boy and after that I knew. I thought you could never know, because you’d hate me for it. You’d never feel about me the way I felt for you. I had to keep you by my side. I would be happy just for that. Then you kissed me and I felt just a little bit less alone. And then on the very same day, you betrayed me.”

Azula surveyed Ty Lee’s face. She was incredulous; pink cheeked, skin wet with tears. “Well? Are you going to say anything? Call me a liar again?”

Ty Lee stormed over to her so abruptly that Azula jumped. She went right up in her face and grabbed Azula’s wrist, pushing her a few steps backwards. Her breath was rapid. She could be about to kiss Azula but she could also be about to punch her in the face.

“I wish things could have been different for us,” she whispered. “Enjoy your lunch, Azula.” And mirroring every other close encounter they had together, Ty Lee left Azula alone for them both to mill over what had just been revealed.


	3. part iii

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this became so long! This was only meant to be a oneshot originally but I've just loved writing about this pairing and about Azula in general. I'm watching the show now for the third time and I just watched the Beach episode this morning so it feels really fitting that I'm posting this now. I'm so happy there's an Avatar renaissance going on right now right in line with me discovering the show! So yes, thank you so much for everyone reading so far and I hope you enjoy how I close off this story.  
> You may have been wondering before why Team Avatar were listed as characters when they've barely made any appearances. Well, the wait is over. I just wanted to see them all interacting with Ty Lee and also have Azula join them.  
> Also since publishing the last chapter, I've watched all of She-Ra which I guess is a classic gay atla fan move, and I noticed lots of parallels between Azula and Catra, so I might have been a bit influenced by her redemption arc in writing this.

Ty Lee had a good life here on Kyoshi Island. Her aura was the pinkest it had ever been. It was not a land mass free from regret, oh no, but here she could atone for what she had done during the War.

People were unoriginal and she had heard countless times the jokes about ‘If you didn’t like being a part of a matching set, why did you join a group of warriors who all dress the same?’ They seemed to think they were clever for that joke, every time. The Kyoshi Warriors were not a matching set. They each had their individuality and even though they wore the same uniform for training and fighting, they were allowed to distinguish between themselves. Ty Lee painted flowers on her headband and kept her hair in its signature style. The uniform did not symbolize a lack of individuality; it signified being a part of something, a family unit where rather than competing for attention like she had done with her sisters, they worked together.

Every few months, Ty Lee’s parents came to visit her. They had never been close. She hadn’t lived with them since she was twelve. It was not that she harbored any ill feelings toward them, it was just that once the septuplets had reached a certain age, they became too much to control and thus were able to run off their separate ways. Ty Lee had joined the circus, then Princess Azula’s mission to find the Avatar, broken into Ba Sing Se, come back to the Fire Nation, gone to prison and finally joined a band of all-female warriors in the Earth Kingdom, and her parents seemed oblivious to all of this. So now they visited although they did not really understand what it meant to be a Kyoshi Warrior.

She had officially completed her Kyoshi training a few months ago. That was not to say she no longer needed to train. Kyoshi Warriors trained on every day of the week when they were not out on missions. Typically, girls officially became Kyoshi Warriors at thirteen, but since Ty Lee joined them when she was fifteen, they had to fast track her through the initial training.

She knew things now like how to put together a good meal which came in useful both when she was cooking for her friends in their communal dinners or taking a quiet morning to do stretches and eat a comforting breakfast. She had gotten to know the wildlife of Kyoshi Island (although the unagi did still creep her out a bit) and was quite into singing and jewelry making. She also felt like she knew more about the life of Kyoshi and the history of the Island than she had ever known about the history of the Fire Nation, from the reading they did in the library. Back at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, she dreaded every history lesson, but here she had come to have quite an appreciation for it, that made her feel not at all stupid like she had in school.

She was a better version of herself. She was not going to let all of that be stripped away now.

Azula had got to her, she could admit that now. She had briefly lost control. Well, she wasn’t going to let her spoil all she had achieved. Starting from now, she was going to return to that positive warrior everyone knew.

Ty Lee rose in the morning feeling refreshed. Think positive thoughts. Positive thoughts. She compelled herself to smile. That was a relief, like all the time she had been frowning, her face had become tense. No longer.

What did it matter Azula was here anyway? She didn’t affect Ty Lee’s life in the long run. There was so much more to life than romance. She didn’t have to think about romance at all now, and if she did want to settle down with someone one day, there were plenty of people in the world she could potentially fall in love with. There was no rush.

She left Mai asleep in the bed. Mai was staying in her room and every Kyoshi Warrior room was equipped with a large double bed that would have fitted three people with a squeeze, so it was not weird for them to share a bed. They had done it completely platonically all throughout their childhoods. Mai slept like the perfect corpse, silently on her back with her legs out straight, and slept in until the late hours of the morning. Ty Lee sat on her floor and did her stretches. Leg up over her head. It was a bit more of a strain than usual as she had not been fully committing to her exercises for the last few weeks, but it was all the more rewarding when she achieved it. How good it felt to loosen all her joints.

The winter solstice was fast approaching. Perhaps it was symbolic for how she should become more in touch with her spirituality.

She decided to whip up a grand breakfast for her friends. Kindness and generosity were some of the most important virtues. She prepared some dashimaki and while that was cooking, heated some leftover rice and made a mix of sliced strawberries and cherries to accompany it. Piling it all onto a tray, she folded several napkins into the shape of a rose and set a small flower on the side of each plate. Carrying a jug of water in one hand and a jug of juice in the other, she balanced the tray on her head to bring it to the communal kitchen. She felt light and breezy.

Suki was already up and talking to Emiko. Ty Lee was surprised the therapist was here so early. Maybe she had stayed overnight. She was showing Suki a square of blue fabric.

“She stitched this. I think it might be symbolic.”

“Isn’t it a bit obvious to be symbolic? Oh, hi Ty Lee. Careful!” Suki rushed to help Ty Lee with the tray.

“It’s okay. I got it!” She slid the tray down onto the table without even using her hands.

“Thanks, Ty Lee. This looks great. You seem…happy.”

Ty Lee grew anxious. What did that mean? “Is that a bad thing?”

“No, no. It’s nice to see you smiling again. What was that you were saying, Emiko?”

“Until I’m back, it’s important to keep her expressing herself. Offer her more arts to see if she latches onto any of them. Writing, painting, even music if you have any instruments.”

“Where are you going?” Ty Lee asked.

“I have some patients to see back home. While I’m there, I’m going to talk to some people and try to find a medicine that might work for Azula. We have some amazing apothecaries. Every time I’ve brought it up to her, she’s been very resistant to the idea, so if you have any ideas for how to make her warm up to it while I’m away.”

“What’s the medicine for? Is she ill?”

“Not physically. It would just be to stabilize her moods, help her be more rational when she’s stressed out. It would be good for her but she accused me of trying to erase her personality. She said I was suggesting there was something inherently broken in her that needed to be fixed. She was upset so I gave up. If you could talk to her.”

“We’ll try.”

“Thank you so much for all you’ve done for her,” Ty Lee beamed. “Do you want to join us for breakfast?”

“I’m afraid I really need to get going.”

“At least take something with you for the road.” Emiko accepted and took some egg.

When she was gone, Suki reached for Ty Lee’s hand across the table in a comforting, friendly gesture. “Thanks so much for this. It looks delicious.”

“I am a genius,” Sokka strolled in, smirking.

“How much of a genius can you be if you have to convince us of that?” Suki stroked Sokka’s arm

“Ha ha, Suki. I thought my girlfriend would be more appreciative of my talents.

“Sorry, babe. Go on then, great genius. What is your wonderful new discovery?”

“Well, I sent some blueprints over to Toph a few days ago and she sent me back a scroll with a drawing of a middle finger on it. She must’ve got one of her students to do it.”

“You forgot Toph is blind _again_? That doesn’t sound like too much of a genius move to me.”

“Let me finish. So, I took the liberty of coming up with some ink she will be able to read. Ink made out of mud! I can send Toph letters and she’ll be able to read them.”

“That’s a great idea!” said Ty Lee.

“Yeah, except for one tiny problem. Toph has never been taught to read in the first place. How is she supposed to know what letters of the alphabet say? To her they’ll just be shapes.”

Sokka stared at Suki for a long time, stunned. Then he slapped himself on the forehead. “Dammit!”

“I think you can pause the inventing for a minute, Mister Genius. Ty Lee has made us breakfast.”

“Whatever happened to a good old meaty breakfast.”

“Sokka!”

“Sorry. Thanks, Ty Lee.”

Over the course of the meal, Suki and Sokka engaged in funny, flirtatious teasing, and when they were done eating, they started kissing. Suki placed a finger on Sokka’s lips and muttered an apology to Ty Lee, but Ty Lee smiled sweetly at them. She decided she had better give them some privacy. She navigated herself behind them so as not to get in their way while taking their plates, and as she did, she got a closer look at what Suki and Emiko had been looking at when she came in. It was a scrap of green fabric, the same type Kyoshi uniforms were made out of. It was mostly plain but a pattern had been stitched in its center. It was so strangely familiar but Ty Lee could not figure out why. In the middle, a heart shape had been embroidered with dark pink thread, and around it, blue thread weaved into the shape of flames. A heart on fire.

* * *

Ty Lee and Mai played Pai Sho.

“I got a letter from my mom this morning.”

“That’s great. What did she say?” Ty Lee stared for a long time at her pieces before cautiously moving the rose tile.

“She asked how you were. I said you were well. The flower shop has been asked to cover a wedding in the Northern Water Tribe.”

“All the way up there? Wow, that will be great for business.”

“Yeah, but I can’t imagine anything worse than going there during Winter with that frosty lot. Mom’s excited for it. She’s never visited either water tribe before. Tom-Tom keeps getting in fights at school.”

“Bad ones?”

“I don’t know. She mentioned he threw a pencil at someone so it can’t be all that bad. I don’t see why the school should make such a big deal out of it.”

“Throwing pencils? Soon he’ll be throwing knives just like his sister.”

“Huh, I hadn’t thought of that. I hope he doesn’t try to copy everything from me. I wrote back to her and said you were fine and that I should be back home in two weeks. Is that okay?”

“Yeah, that’s fine. You’ve done so much already.”

“Perfect. I haven’t told her that _she_ is here since I doubt she’ll be happy what with her putting me in prison and endangering our family. I win.” Mai delivered all of this flippantly.

“Mai, I have something to tell you.” Now was as good a time as any.

“Is it important?”

“Yeah, it is. I think it is.”

“Alright.” Mai sank onto the couch and crossed her legs. “I’m listening.”

Ty Lee’s hands were sweating and she rubbed them together in front of her. “Okay, so you know how in school back home, we were taught things that weren’t true to make us all look better?”

“Propaganda, yes I’m aware.”

“And how there were a lot of things we weren’t taught about?”

“Is there a point to this?” Mai yawned.

“Hang on, I’m getting there. I’ve…realized something about myself while I’m here. Mai…I’m kyoshine.” She paused, trying to derive meaning from Mai’s impartial face. “I like girls. I’m attracted to girls – to women.”

“I know what a kyoshine is. I’m happy for you.” Was that Mai’s happy expression? It was hard to tell. “I support you.”

“Really?”

“‘Course I do. Did you seriously think I wouldn’t?”

“No! I mean that’s amazing news. Thank you!”

“So how long have you known?”

“Probably about eighteen months. Suki helped me figure it out.”

“Suki? Figures.”

“What does that mean?”

“She’s the leader of a group of all-female warriors. Please don’t tell me you’re having a fling with her. Is Sokka going to come chasing after you with his boomerang?”

“No, I’m not! Why does everyone think that?”

It looked like Mai was raising her eyebrows, even though her bangs kept her eyebrows blanketed most of the time anyway. “Who else thought that?”

“Nobody. Nobody. There’s one more thing. You’ve got to promise not to be angry with me for it.”

“We’ve been over this, I don’t have any problem with you being kyoshine.”

“It’s bigger than that. Please, Mai?”

Mai gave a resigned sigh. “Fine. I promise. What is it?”

“You see, I had a crush on a girl when I was younger, and didn’t realize it, because I didn’t understand the feelings I had. I only realized quite recently what my feelings about her meant. You know how everyone would say to me my friendship with Azula got in the way of realizing how terrible she really was?”

Mai’s jaw dropped. “You didn’t.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. We all have questionable crushes when we’re younger. Are we done?”

“Oh. Well, that’s not all.”

“There’s more? Alright, go on.”

“I told her recently the way I used to feel and she told me she’d felt the same, and I’m worried her being here has made those feelings…start to come back.” Mai stood up. “You promised you wouldn’t be angry, Mai!”

“How could you be so stupid, Ty Lee?”

“I’m not stupid! I know I shouldn’t still have feelings about her. Who knows, it might just be a side effect of not having seen her in ages, and of what she said to me.”

“Azula always lies.”

“I know, trust me, I know. I didn’t ask for any of this. If you’re angry with me, imagine how angry I must be with myself. If I’d been able to look past my…feelings earlier on then we might have ended it all sooner. You don’t have to tell me she’s a bad person or that she’s done terrible things. Believe me, I know. She doesn’t just get to waltz in here and have us forgive her. But what if she doesn’t _always_ lie?”

“You don’t have to be so literal about it. Of course no one _always_ lies.”

“I think both of us know now she probably did come here to get better, at least a little bit, and we’ve accepted that. So why would she lie about that – about having feelings for me?”

“I don’t know, maybe to make you feel guilty,” she remarked with heavy sarcasm and it sure did sound like Mai still thought Ty Lee was stupid.

“She wouldn’t…lie about that, not if she had any loyalty to her father still or to any of the old firelords.” Mai didn’t mean any harm by implying Azula was lying about being attracted to her or more specifically, being attracted to women, but it did hurt. It felt like another insult piled on top of what was already building up inside her. “Please don’t hold this against me, Mai. We can’t let her divide us. We stick together, even if we’re on opposite sides of the world.” Ty Lee held out her hand.

Mai rolled her eyes and took it. “Fine.”

“Are we good?”

“Yes. I’m sorry I called you stupid. You’re not.”

Ty Lee smiled again. “Hey, you know what’s funny about this? It shows why we’re best friends.”

“How so?”

“We each had a thing for one of Ozai’s children!”

There was a slight twitch at the corner of Mai’s lips that demonstrated she found this funny. “We’re not going there again.”

Maybe it was a good thing Ty Lee had admitted to someone else her feelings. She felt like she could finally put down some of that weight she had been carrying since before the end of the war.

* * *

Azula crouched on her bed, glaring at the sheet of paper before her. Art was a waste of time. Hobbies were a waste of time. Her fingers were all stained with colored wax from gripping the crayons and having no clue what to do with them.

They were going to start drugging her. Chemically altering the fabric of her being, subduing her fire more than they already were. It meant she couldn’t get better herself, she had to be literally changed.

Maybe coming here was the wrong thing. Her old friends were here and were no closer to not hating her, and she had slipped with Ty Lee. Revealed her weakness, all for Ty Lee to think she was lying. Possibly.

Would she have been the same if her mother favored her as she had Zuko? Would she have been different if she hadn’t been a princess, but born into another Fire Nation family, one like Ty Lee’s or Mai’s perhaps?

The door opened and her head rose, but it was just Suki and Hikari with her lunch.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” This was usually the extent of their exchanges.

“Creative block?” Suki asked, looking at the blank paper before Azula.

“I do not have creative blocks. This is beneath me.”

“Well you don’t have anything else to do, so you might as well give it a go.”

“So you can analyse me from what I draw?”

“Whatever. We thought you might be tired of wearing the same two outfits so we brought you some clothes you could choose from.” As Suki spoke, Hikari heavily set down a box. “Ty Lee contributed some Fire Nation jewelry, so you could feel more at home.”

Ty Lee contributed them? “Why would I want to wear anything from the Nation that abandoned me?”

Suki looked like she was becoming more and more infuriated at Azula’s constant quips and rejections. She breathed heavily through her nose to keep her tone steady. “The offer stands. There are some more books in there too. Pick out anything you like.” The two warriors collected themselves, ready to leave.

“It was very nice of you to give me so much freedom after how I treated you when you were _my_ prisoner,” said Azula, half goading, half sincere. Suki had been put in a tiny cell in the Boiling Rock, smaller than Azula’s room at the institution. It was for about three months that she was there with Azula making visits to taunt her and interrogate her for information. She had admired the girl’s silent resilience back then although she never said it.

“Yeah, guess I’m not the vengeful type. What’s the point of doing back to someone what they did to you if they’re sorry? I have a lot of experience with forgiveness. I’m friends with Aang for one and that’s his thing. I’m friends with Ty Lee and Mai and Zuko and they were all once my enemies. Sokka was a sexist jerk when I met him and now, he’s my boyfriend.”

The question arose in Azula’s throat. _Do you think we could ever be friends?_ But she didn’t ask. “You must be quite pleased with yourself. The first person to escape from the Boiling Rock.”

“ _One of_ the first. I never know if you’re trying to compliment me or insult me. I did hope I’d get out. I thought – well, I hoped – that my friends would win the war and then I’d get out. I didn’t think before that.”

“That’s a lot of hope to place in your friends.”

“It is. But they came through and helped me get out of there. One of the best days of my life.”

“The worst of mine,” Azula muttered, thinking about those pivotal seconds between feeling Ty Lee’s jabs to her skin and when she hit the floor. Betrayal. “Do you think Ty Lee will ever be able to move on?”

“That’s the thing about forgiveness. It’s not moving on, leaving the trauma of the past behind. It’s bringing it with you, being able to build something new from it.”

“That sounds like something my uncle might say.”

“I always forget he’s your uncle.”

“You mean you don’t see how similar we are?” She tossed her hair and laughed and Suki let out a small laugh too.

“You’re actually quite funny. Try opening with jokes more often. Azula, can I ask you something?”

“You might as well.”

“Why Ty Lee?”

“What do you mean?”

“I never understood the three of you – you, Ty Lee and Mai. I know friends shouldn’t be exactly the same in personality or that would be boring, but I’ve never met three people more different from each other. And when you came here, it was Ty Lee you were looking for. Maybe you just thought she was the most likely to forgive you which you were very wrong about, or maybe you thought her forgiveness would feel good because she’s such a nice person, but I think it’s more than that. I think you really care about her.”

Azula scrutinized Suki’s firm face. What did she know? Had Ty Lee said something to her? Probably; they were very close friends. Or was Suki merely referring to their friendship? “You believe me then, that I’m here for forgiveness?”

“I do,” said Suki, as if she were surprised by the fact herself. “But that doesn’t answer my question.”

“It felt like she was the only person who actually liked me and not because they had to. When we were children, early in school, I remember she just walked over and started talking to me in that happy, carefree way of hers, as if I were any other student. I liked having her around me. I’m probably not making sense to you.”

“No, you are. I get you.”

“Don’t say anything to Ty Lee.”

“Got it. Hikari and I have to go back to our duties if that’s alright?”

“Yes, that’s quite alright.” That was enough oversharing and awkward interaction for one day. When they were gone, Azula rifled through the box. There were some Fire Nation hair pins from her grandfather’s era if she was correct. She snapped it and tossed the pieces across the room. There were some scrolls in there which held no interest to her until she saw the name written down the side of one; _Love Amongst Dragons._ It had been years since she last saw that play. Reading the script for it might move interesting.

* * *

Ty Lee’s instincts were pretty great if she did say so herself. It was hard to describe. She thought it had to do with being in touch with people’s chis. She felt shifts in energies in space like changes in the tone of someone’s voice. Sometimes her body had a reaction to them before her mind was even aware of it.

Tonight her body chose to wake itself up in the middle of the night. She was aggravated at first because waking up in the middle of the night for no reason was the worst. Then she felt a breeze on her face. As her eyes adjusted to the dark, she spotted its cause; her door to the outside was open just a slit and the winter wind coursing through that gap had blown out her lamp.

It was hardly that suspicious. Those doors were heavy and she could easily have left it open or not closed it all the way. She wasn’t perfect. But something just didn’t feel right.

Suddenly the darkness was much scarier than before.

“Mai,” she whispered. When Mai didn’t respond, she poked her again and when that didn’t work, she hit her over the head with a pillow.

Mai did stir this time. “Ughhhhhh,” was the noise she made. She sat up just long enough to take the pillow from Ty Lee’s hand and then placed it over her head to block out any noise. Even if Mai had woken up, she wouldn’t believe her anyway. Mai wasn’t very spiritual.

Ty Lee put on her belt and grabbed her fans. She crept out into the hallway and knocked on Suki’s door opposite hers. The door opened and she started talking immediately. “I’m sorry, Suki, I know it’s late and I know it’s probably nothing but—Oh hi Sokka.” It was Sokka in the doorway, looking even grumpier than Mai had when she woke her up. “Is Suki there?”

“I think she’s still on guard duty. Anything I can offer my assistance with instead?”

“My door was open and I know it’s stupid but I just had a bad feeling.” Before she could finish, he had retreated into his room. She thought he was going to shut the door in her face to get back to sleep, but he returned with his boomerang and sword. “You believe me?”

“I know the power of instincts.” They hurried down to where Azula’s room was and spotted a figure lying face down outside that heavy door. It was easy enough to tell who it was with the green dress and auburn bob.

“Suki!” Sokka screamed, falling down beside her. “No!”

Ty Lee knelt beside her and felt Suki’s shoulder. The chi still flowed through her. She breathed a sigh of relief. “She’s alive. She’s going to be fine. She’s just been tranquilized.” Sure enough, there was a dart sticking out the side of her neck. The door to the room was still shut but now Ty Lee knew someone must be inside. She tried the door and it was unlocked but only opened a few inches before it was stopped by something blocking it. From inside, she could hear all kinds of crashes.

“Azula!” Ty Lee and Sokka shoved at the door together but it would not budge much further. Sokka tried stabbing at it with his sword.

“What I’d give to be a bender right now.”

There were thundering footsteps and Mai came tearing down the corridor, holding a knife in each hand.

“Mai!” Ty Lee shouted with delight, before remembering the tense situation they were in.

“It’s great you’re here,” said Sokka. “I have a plan. Okay, so we have to use our weapons to lever open the door.”

Mai sliced her knife through the gap, widening it enough for the other two to fit their knives. With the weight of their three bodies along with the sharp objects they held, they were able to push the heavy object blocking the door – which turned out to be that chest of drawers Azula so hated – over and get into the room.

Azula lay on the floor, a gag in her mouth and a look of utter fury in her amber eyes as she struggled and screamed muffled words. Behind her stood a figure in a black hood who held a crossbow across their chest while they bound Azula’s wrists. When the figure saw them, they fired at Ty Lee. She somersaulted out of the way and a dart like the one in Suki’s neck stuck firmly in the wall behind where she had been standing.

“Get away from her!” Ty Lee yelled.

Mai threw one of her knives and it knocked the crossbow out of the assassin’s (for that was what they surely must be) hand. Unfortunately, the assassin had a long dagger and charged at Mai, leading Ty Lee to jump in and deflect them with her own sword. Behind them, Sokka rapidly sawed through Azula’s bonds. Then Azula was up on her feet but her cuffs that prevented her firebending were still on and none of them had the key.

“Are you alright?” Ty Lee asked.

“Aside from being attacked by a lunatic, yes. Ty Lee, look out! Azula dived at Ty Lee, landing them both on the ground and knocking the wind out of Ty Lee, to avoid one of Mai’s knives which the assassin had picked up and flung with expertise. If Ty Lee had stayed standing where she was, she would have been hit squarely in the centre of her back. Azula was cut in between her neck and shoulder by it and only started to feel the pain when she pulled her fingers away from the spot on her neck to find them covered in blood. “Oh no you don’t.” In her lifetime, Azula had experienced minimal weapon training, but she threw herself at the assassin and stabbed them with something just above the knee. The assassin let out a cry. When Azula had fallen away, they could all see the top of a Fire Nation headpiece sticking out of the fabric.

“That’s what you get for using my knives!” spat Mai, curiously cheering Azula on.

Following this example, Ty Lee used the last bit of strength in her legs to jettison herself at the assassin and chi-block the arm that was still holding a sword. Dropping it and clutching their arm, the assassin with their face still hidden quickly limped out of the door they had all come in through.

“Stop them!”

All of them were utterly worn out though and when Sokka tried to follow the assassin, he ended up tripping over the crossbow and landing on his face. He inspected the crossbow. “Earth Kingdom.”

“How did they find out she was here?” Mai asked.

“I don’t know. We’ll have to send out an alert.”

“How? We can’t have more people finding out.”

“I don’t know! I’ll brainstorm something to say in the morning. Sokka needs his sleep.” He yawned to demonstrate. “That was very resourceful, Azula, using that hairpin. Master Piandao would be proud.”

“My brother’s ridiculous sword master?”

“Well he’s my ridiculous sword master too!”

“Maybe you should be focusing on how your girlfriend’s passed out and that we’ve just been attacked before sleeping,” Mai pointed out.

“Good point. Azula, can I see that?” He pointed to her neck.

“I would prefer if you didn’t.”

“My sister’s a healer. I’ve picked up some skills from her.” Reluctantly, Azula moved her hands away. Sokka inspected the gash for a good ten seconds, making “hmm” noises before saying, “yes, that is definitely bleeding.”

“You know what, Sokka, maybe you should go and see to Suki. Mai and I can take it from here.” Ty Lee beamed at him and Mai glared at her for signing her up for this. “I’ve got some medical equipment in my room. This room isn’t secure now anyway. Azula, can you walk?” Azula nodded. “Okay, but we’re going to walk on either side of you so you don’t try to run off.”

“Still don’t trust me, even after I saved your life?”

Ty Lee bit her lip. “Let’s go.”

As they walked, Azula looked over either shoulder and grinned deviously at both of her former friends. “Thank you for coming to help me. You really have impeccable timing. I would have thought you Mai would have been the first to hand me over to an assassin. Or maybe you’ve taken pity on me.”

Mai wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of replying.

“It was just like old times, the three of us fighting together. How nostalgic.”

“Yeah, good times. I wonder _what_ could have changed all of that.”

“Mai, don’t.” Now Ty Lee didn’t know whose side to be on. Azula had been attacked and had still shielded her. But that one decent (more than decent really) deed didn’t suddenly reverse everything. She knew she had to be empathetic because all of them had just dealt with a very stressful situation.

In her bedroom, Ty Lee lit a candle and locked the window and the door back up. She knew now that the assassin must have come in through her room although how she could not figure out. It hadn’t been another Kyoshi warrior, she was certain of that. To think, if the assassin had broken in any other way, Azula might be dead now or at least have been taken.

Ty Lee cleaned Azula’s wound and covered it up as best as she could. It didn’t look like any part of the knife or anything else that could infect it had been caught up in the cut. It might need stitches but she didn’t know how to do that. She would have to bring her to the healing huts in the morning. She rubbed oil around the outsides as well as the parts of her own body she thought might have bruised. Now came the difficult question.

Azula had to share the room with Ty Lee and Mai that night, but there was one double bed and one couch. The courteous thing to do was to offer the guests the bed and for the host to sleep on the couch. However, the last thing Mai wanted to do was share a bed with Azula. She would happily take the stiff couch.

“I guess that means that it’s me and Az—”

“I’ll take the couch,” Azula insisted. That was a surprise. Ty Lee expected Azula’s princess upbringing to make her want the greatest source of comfort available. “What? I saw that look. You’d rather eat a live cavehopper than share a bed with me,” she said with forlorn acceptance.

Sleep did not come at all easily because Ty Lee was in a permanent state of apprehension, fearing they would be attacked again. It didn’t really help that she could see Azula’s shape bundled in blankets lying on the couch and even though Ty Lee knew in her heart Azula wasn’t going to try to escape, she still had to consider that this bedroom was far less secure than the room Azula was in previously. If she wished, she really could escape at any time.

Every time Ty Lee heard a noise, she would sit up and look around, but it was usually just the wind or an animal outside or sometimes Azula muttering in her sleep. She muttered a lot and rolled around. When Ty Lee had slept over at hers when they were children, Azula always wriggled a lot but she was never quite so loud. What was she dreaming about?

Ty Lee didn’t feel like she slept at all but she must have because eventually it was the morning and when she sat up to check on the latest noise, Azula was rolling around but her eyes were open, as if she were trying desperately to plunge herself back into sleep.

“Morning,” Ty Lee said, hesitantly.

“Good morning, Ty Lee,” Azula pronounced.

“How are you after everything last night?”

“Well, I’m still here, aren’t I?” She took in a breath. “If I didn’t say so already, thank you for saving me. Another minute and I might have been dead or at least captured.” It took a great deal of vulnerability, her admitting this.

“I was only doing a Kyoshi warrior’s duty.”

“Alright.” Azula gestured to Mai. “Look at the sleeping beauty. I’ve been trying to tell you both that I’m sorry but it’s difficult with her always giving me dagger eyes.”

“What changed?”

“What?”

“All those years of wanting to be the best, wanting to be Firelord, and all those months we were traveling together with you manipulating me and Mai – you never seemed to regret it and suddenly you want us to forgive you.”

“You believe me now then? That I came here to mend things?”

Ty Lee finally rolled out of her bed. “Yes, I think I do.”

“I never told you the story of why I came here in the first place. Do you think I could tell you now? And then maybe you could tell me what you have been up to.”

Ty Lee hesitated. She remembered the vows she had made to herself a few days ago. She wasn’t going to let Azula impact her way of life or bring down her mood. But she was also meant to be positive, understanding. And with that came listening. She sat on the floor cross-legged opposite Azula but still a safe distance from her. “Okay.”

So Azula told her the full story. Of thinking she had recovered in the Forgetful Valley. Of leaving the Fire Nation capital, confident that she would return and take back the throne. Because who was she if she wasn’t aspiring to be the best? So, she’d focused with all her might on the old version of herself, ignoring the unsettling hollowness that came with it that it wasn’t her anymore. She told Ty Lee about the return of her delusions in the Earth Kingdom, her abandonment by her troupe who deemed her a liability, her brief but eye-opening travels in the Earth Kingdom.

“That’s the thing I’ve realized,” Ty Lee interjected. “We’ve got to talk to people from the other nations! I’ve met so many people from the Earth Kingdom and even from the Water Tribe, and they’ve told me things I never even thought about. I don’t know if you heard but Aang and Zuko are working to make a city for people of any nation!”

“Really? That’s a…bold choice.”

“I know! I wasn’t sure if it was going to work at first but it seems to be going really well! Seriously, you need to talk to people from around the world. Right, except…”

“I can’t.”

“Yeah. Well, maybe one day. But what happened next? You were traveling the Earth Kingdom and…?”

“I ended up in these tunnels near Omashu.”

“Oh, the Cave of Two Lovers!”

“Is that what it’s called? How unoriginal.”

“I think it’s sweet.”

“Then, I don’t know if it was the caves or just me but I started to see things, and at the same time it felt like I was seeing with clarity. You can’t imagine how much it hurts to be trapped in visions of your own mistakes, relayed all around you. Like every surface was a mirror and I was forced to see myself how everyone else sees me. And then there was one person I saw in there who made me realize I needed to come here.”

Ty Lee shuffled slightly to the side. Azula didn’t need to say it. She knew what she meant. “I’m sorry,” she said, without really thinking over the words.

“No, _I’m_ sorry. For all I did to you. I blurred the lines of a friend and a worshipper because I was…scared you’d leave. And that was terrible of me. So I’m sorry.”

“Well, thank you. But what about the rest of it? Not just me and Mai. Not just the noble girls you were friends with. What about Team Avatar or all the people you used to call peasants or all the people you— _We_ hurt together?”

Azula struggled for a moment with how to answer. “I _was_ the princess.” Ty Lee must have looked disappointed because Azula continued, trying to explain herself. “I know it’s not an excuse but you know how we were raised; to think we were better than anyone else. Me more so than you. I’m not justifying it, just saying maybe you can understand why I became what I did. But if you broke out of it and Zuko did and Mai did, maybe I can too. Maybe one day I’ll be able to almost make up for all of what I did.”

“I hope so.”

“And will you be able to forgive me then?”

Ty Lee gave a slight involuntary nod. Except she knew not everyone Azula had ever hurt would forgive her. It was very unlikely that assassin would, whoever they were. So maybe Azula was closer to receiving Ty Lee’s forgiveness than she might believe. Ty Lee reached out to her tentatively. An offering of peace, of civility, for now.

And Azula took it, touching it gently across the floor. Then Azula smiled. Azula’s smile, her real smile without any of the malice, was a curious phenomenon. It was very subtle but soft, a slight upturning at the corners of her plump lips. The lines of tension creasing her face melted away. The smile was hesitant, as if it was unsure if it should even exist and how people would perceive it.

“Why are you smiling at me like that?” Azula asked, and now those frown lines had returned, her lips twisted downwards with paranoia.

“You looked cute there just for a second.”

“I am _not_ cute!”

“I think you’re a big sweetheart.”

“No, I’m not.”

It was now with the two of them laughing and joking that Mai chose to wake up. As she sat up and saw them, she gave them an impassive glare.

Soon, Suki and Sokka stopped in to check on them.

“Suki!” Ty Lee ran over to her. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine. A bit drowsy. Sokka said you were attacked last night. I came to find out how much of it was true.”

“We were attacked. There was an assassin after Azula but we fought them off. They got away and we didn’t see their face.”

“ _One_ assassin.” She turned to look at Sokka with a smug expression on her face. “You said there were three. And that you fought them off singlehandedly.”

“A man has to change some details sometimes for storytelling purposes.”

“Azula, did you really get stabbed in the neck?” Azula pulled down the collar of her shirt to show the bandaged area. The dressing was dark red. “Oh dear, that doesn’t look good at all. We should get you to the healing huts. And what are we doing about the assassin?”

“I’m going to write a letter to Zuko, his royal flaminess.”

In response to this, Azula gave an uncharacteristic cackle. “‘His royal flaminess!’ I bet he hates that!”

“Thanks, Azula. Someone appreciates my fun nicknames.”

“That’s only because you told people to start calling the two of us the Sock Squad,” said Suki. “I’d love to see Zuko but I don’t want any armies showing up in my village.”

“I know. He’ll understand. I just don’t think we can keep it from him any longer.”

At that moment, Rangi, a younger Kyoshi Warrior, came running in and stopped to pant, completely unable to form words. They all found this very amusing.

“Take your time, Rangi,” laughed Suki.

“Avatar Aang, Katara of the Southern Water Tribe and Toph Beifong have arrived to see you.” Normally any of them would be happy to see their friends but today they were alarmed.

“Did they say why they were here?!” Suki asked loudly. Rangi shrugged. “Well, when did they get here?”

“Ten minutes ago, I think. They’re just unloading the sky bison but they were being held up by that guy who foams at the mouth.” She bowed and left.

Aang, Katara and Toph were here and they would catch them with Azula, before the letter had even been sent out. Although the logical thing to do might be to calmly explain it to them, instinct took over and Ty Lee shoved Azula into the closet. The princess didn’t even resist.

If anyone had doubted it, the sound of familiar voices emanated from the corridor before the three teenagers made themselves visible. Aang and Katara walked in side-by-side and Toph stomped in behind them. She was no taller at sixteen than she had been at twelve. Aang on the other hand had had a growth spurt and was now taller than Sokka, and his voice had broken. Toph had cut her hair short while Katara’s was long and in bouncy curls. All three of them now masters.

“It’s so good to see you guys!” Katara moved first, hugging Suki first, followed by Ty Lee, and going to hug Mai but deciding it was better not to after Mai backed away and hid behind Sokka.

“Doesn’t your brother get a hug, Katara?” asked Sokka. In response, she splashed him in the face with a jet of water.

“Is that Sokka here? Am I right in thinking Mai’s here too?” Toph’s equivalent to Katara’s hugs was pounding everyone on the shoulder and she had to jump up to do this to Mai. Ty Lee had forgotten that Toph could detect who was present using her earthbending. She panicked for a moment, wondering if Toph could tell Azula was in there as well. The closet was made out of wood which Toph should not be able to ‘see’ through. Indeed, there was no sign of suspicion on Toph’s face but Ty Lee still tensed up.

“What are you all doing here?” Ty Lee giggled, hoping she did not come across as too nervous.

“Surprise party!”

“For who?” Mai’s birthday was the next one but that wasn’t until next month.

“We heard you officially finished your Kyoshi training at the end of the summer, Ty Lee,” Katara explained. “We couldn’t come then so we thought we’d throw you a late party now. And in the spirit of Kyoshi, we’re going to have a girls night. It’s so good you’re here for this too, Mai.”

“I had Kyoshi training, I should be able to come,” Sokka argued.

“And I _was_ Kyoshi herself. I should too!” said Aang.

“I think that’s a great idea, Katara,” said Suki. “You two can have a boys’ night. Go play with the unagi again.”

“No fair!”

“It’s great we have the whole gang here. Well, everyone except Zuko.”

“Oh, is he too good for us with all his Firelord duties?” Sokka joked.

“No need to make fun of him just because he has more responsibilities than _you’ll_ ever have,” Katara retorted. The siblings started to bicker.

While all of this went on, Azula stayed curled up in the closet, listening to the cheery voices of her vanquishers. Tears escaped from under her closed eyelids. She curled her hand into a fist and shoved her knuckles against her lips to stifle her shuddering sobs. Her jagged fingernails – those nails she had once put such care into to keep in perfect condition even in battle – dug deeper and deeper into her palm.

* * *

Katara, Toph, Suki, Mai and Ty Lee. Five girls who played a part in the overthrow of Firelord Ozai. Sure, they had had their ups and downs, their conflicts, their fights, but now they were all friends.

After they were shown to their rooms and unpacked, Katara and Toph decided they needed to nap for a few hours. They had been flying overnight after all. This was convenient for Ty Lee, Suki and Mai because they were also very tired and needed to get Azula to the healing hut without the newcomers seeing her.

“Don’t work yourself up about it,” Suki said to Ty Lee, once the sullen and reticent Azula was with the healers having her neck seen to. “Today’s about you. We’ll tell them in a couple of days.” Suki was right. Ty Lee wanted to enjoy today. She _was_ going to enjoy today.

They spent the early afternoon until the evening on the beach. Sokka and Aang were allowed to join them for this part. Toph showed off her refined skills at building sand sculptures, taking requests.

“Can you make my boomerang?”

“You ask me that every time. Pick something original, peabrain.”

“Make Appa!”

Toph gritted her teeth at no doubt another request she had heard frequently, but easily raised a replica of Appa from the ground, complete with an arrow scraped into his forehead.

“How’s the school going, Toph?” Ty Lee asked.

“Fine. My students are _finally_ getting somewhere. But now I’m getting clout, a bunch of old Earth Kingdom families are asking me if I can train their kids. I meet them and they don’t have a metalbending bone in their body. I don’t think some of them are even earthbenders.”

Aang’s head broke the surface of the water from quite far out in the sea and he rose up on the back of one of the elephant koi. Katara shook her head with a pleasant smile. “He’s going to be fifty and still doing that.”

“I have an idea!” said Toph. “Who’s up for a race to determine who the strongest nonbender is?”

“I feel like there’s a catch to this,” Suki smirked.

“I’m not being a part of this,” said Mai.

Toph took Katara aside to whisper to her and both started giggling. When Aang got closer to the shore, Toph called out to him, “Hey, Twinkle toes! Get over here! We need you!”

“Is this just another excuse to dunk on Sokka?” Suki asked.

“Yes. And what about it?”

Toph’s challenge, as it turned out, was to run all the way to the rocks at the end of this strip of beach and back. It was a significant distance that it would be a challenge, but not so far that they would be utterly worn out and unable to make it all the way. As Suki said, there was a catch and this catch became obvious when Ty Lee, Suki and Sokka started to run. Immediately, blasts of sand started to fly at them, not quite in their faces, but filling the air around them like a miniature sandstorm. Ty Lee tried to jump beyond the vicinity of the sandstorm, but it was difficult to jump when standing on sand and she ended up landing on her side in a spot of very shallow water. She was about to leap up and run again when the water level rose and saltwater sprayed her in the eyes. Ty Lee had no idea where the others were but she knew she was nowhere near the rocks that marked the halfway point.

“Katara, this isn’t fair!” Ty Lee half giggled, half spluttered out.

“I’m going easy on you,” Ty Lee heard her shout back. Ty Lee managed to break free of Katara’s coil of water. She anticipated an attack from Aang next and veered slightly to the left to get as far away from the sea as possible and ran while hunched over to avoid air attacks. Of course, Aang had control of all four elements, but it was most likely he would use air. She could see the shape of Suki sprinting a bit ahead of her and the shape of those rocks beyond. When she was nearly there, she stuck out an arm in preparation. When her hand made contact, she used the force to propel herself backwards to get a head start on the way back.

She spun in the air so that she was facing the right way and was hit by a compacted clump of sand in the back. Toph could not see targets in the air so she was flinging sand everywhere and it was pure chance that Ty Lee was hit. With more of her energy spent, this time it was more difficult to get back up but she did. A heavy gust of wind dragged her feet back in the sand, leaving behind elongated footprints, but she was able to push against it. The sand in the air was now just sparse grains and Ty Lee saw Suki run past Aang, with Ty Lee close behind her and then Sokka. All three of them collapsed in the sand.

Sokka’s face was coated in mud. “Toph. Really?”

“Suki has proven herself the strongest nonbender.”

“You’re the only person I’m happy to lose to,” he said, kissing Suki on the cheek.

“Gross,” said Toph.

“Come on, Toph, they’re cute,” said Ty Lee.

“I came here to escape being the third wheel to one annoying couple but now I’m the fifth wheel to two annoying couples.” This made everyone laugh.

They all went back to the village and showered, and once the girls were in their pajamas, they got together in Ty Lee’s now Azula-free bedroom, since Aang and Sokka were going to be sleeping in Suki and Sokka’s room.

Suki had her head tenderly in Katara’s lap while Katara braided a friendship bracelet around her wrist. Meanwhile, Ty Lee stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth as she focused on threading together a flower crown for Mai. They had a large plate of sushi and another of wagashi pastries for dessert to share between them.

“Look what I got!” Suki drew out two bottles of wine. The legal drinking age on Kyoshi Island was eighteen although Suki told Toph she could have half a glass.

“Hey, my parents let me have wine at their fancy dinners when I was eight!”

“I’m not your parents.” She poured for them all and they clinked their glasses together. “To Ty Lee! May she have many more years as a Kyoshi Warrior.”

“And to Kyoshi! And women!” said Katara.

“I’ll drink to that,” said Suki with a wink.

“Let’s play a game. Charades?”

“Wow, how considerate of you, Katara.”

“You’re right, Toph. Sorry, I’ll try to think of something more inclusive. Hmm. No, that’s no good. Ooh, what about truth or dare?”

“If we have to,” said Mai. “Maybe it will be funny.”

“Yes, Mai! Spicing things up!”

“Suki, truth or dare?”

“Truth.” Suki leaned back and crossed her arms, wearing a look of smugness.

“If you could wake up in the body of one person here for a day, who would it be?”

“Wow. Okay, you Katara so I could get to try out waterbending.”

“Nice! Toph, truth or dare?”

“Dare.”

“Oh, I know!” said Ty Lee. “I dare you to drink some soap.”

“No, she’ll be sick!”

“I got this. Give me some soap.” Ty Lee went to the sink and brought back a bottle. Toph squeezed a large portion into the palm of her hand and slapped it against her tongue. She grimaced before swallowing.

“You’re disgusting.”

“None of you cowards can handle me. Mai, truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

“Okay, your worst ever kiss.”

“Ugh, Suki do you remember that party we went to after I broke up with Zuko?”

“Which time?” giggled Ty Lee. She and Toph high-fived each other across the circle.

“Hilarious. I met this boy there. He was bad. Too much teeth. Next.”

“Is it my turn?” asked Ty Lee. “Dare.”

“Aw, but I had a truth I wanted to ask you,” said Katara.

“Okay, fine. Truth.”

“What’s your type?”

“Um—”

“Yes, getting into serious territory here!” Suki cheered. She smiled at Ty Lee, encouragingly, and Ty Lee realized she hadn’t guessed. However, Mai was staring at her hard and although her expression itself was unreadable, Ty Lee knew her friend well enough to know what she was thinking.

“I don’t know. Fun, interesting?”

“Hey, there’s someone outside,” said Toph. “They’ve actually been there a few minutes now but I only just realized they’re lurking.” Before any of them could question her any further, Toph was at the door and there stood Azula, looking dazed. She stumbled backwards, looking like a lost deer.

Katara leapt to her feet while Mai and Suki both rolled their eyes.

“Katara, stop. We can explain.”

“Not this again,” said Mai.

“What’s going on?” asked Toph.

“You don’t recognize her?” Toph was so good at telling who people were by the way they stood on the earth. It was hard to imagine what that must be like.

“Sort of. Like someone vaguely familiar but different. Hang on.” Toph must have realized who it was now as well, for she jumped into a fighting stance and stone closed around Azula’s legs.

“Toph, let her go. We were going to tell you but—”

“But what?!” Katara demanded. “The last time you told me to trust her was when we went looking for Ursa and look what happened then.”

Suki ignored her. “She’s been here about a month now. She’s our prisoner.”

“She looks pretty free to me.”

“She can’t firebend, look. We just let her come here because she was seeking help. And she’s been getting help, she’s been good so far.”

Katara huffed. “Define ‘good’.”

“ _Not attacking anyone_.”

“She’s been talking to someone too,” Ty Lee stepped in. “A therapist. I didn’t believe it first either – why would I? But she’s been making really good progress. And she was attacked last night. By an assassin; from the Earth Kingdom, we think.”

“An assassin? Then you should be warning people! Does Zuko know?”

“If he doesn’t already know, he’ll know in a few days. Sokka wrote him a letter earlier.”

“Sokka knew and didn’t tell me?” For now, annoyance with her brother seemed to have calmed Katara’s rage towards Azula. “I’ll have to get back at him for that.”

Ty Lee stepped gingerly towards Azula, putting out a hand as if she were steadily approaching a lion. The look of paralyzed terror on her face was a rarity she had seen so few times. “Hey, Azula, are you okay? I can take you back to your room if you want.” Actually, she didn’t even know where Azula’s room was right now. This was meant to be her room. What was she doing here? Who had left her alone?

Azula heard the words but they passed right through her head. She was too caught up in the reminder of her failure, there before her eyes. Her dad was back in her head. She was fourteen again. _Failure, failure. You can’t treat me like Zuko._

_I was fourteen but they’ll never stop seeing me that way. They think I can’t change. I’ve proven I can’t change. They gave me chances before, so many chances, and I blew it. They have every right to not trust me. I want to be different. I want to be better. I want to start over. I want to erase the person I was then. Eighteen years of my life wasted. What if I think I’m better and then I disappoint again? All I do is manipulate. Is that all I know?_

Something bridged the gap. Ty Lee’s hand on her upper arm.

“Hey, Azula. What’s wrong?”

“I was…hoping I could join you.”

Ty Lee looked around at the others and non-verbally checked if this was okay. Mai shrugged at her and Suki nodded. Only Katara looked particularly bothered, but she didn’t put up much of a fight. Maybe her experience at mending her relationship with Azula’s brother had made her a bit more yielding.

“She’s telling the truth,” said Toph. “I think. She was a very good liar last time.”

With her hand on her shoulder, Ty Lee guided Azula to the others. There was wariness in all of their faces as she sat slightly apart from the rest of them, waiting for approval. Azula spoke up.

“Katara of the Southern Water Tribe.”

Katara was astounded. “Yes?”

“I know this isn’t going to change how you see me but I owe it to you to say I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for…?”

“Excuse me?”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“Fine!” she said in a near shout, before taking deep breaths to calm down. “Sorry. I’m working on being a better person. Sorry for trying to kill you and your friends many times and I’m sorry for what my nation did to your people. The same goes for you, Toph – that’s your name, isn’t it? I’m sorry to you too.”

“Eh, no biggie,” said Toph. “Just business, isn’t it?” Katara elbowed her.

Azula continued directing her apology at Katara. “I hope one day I can help repair some of what was done to you.”

Katara glared at Azula before dropping it. “Ty Lee, Suki, are you sure this is the real Azula and not some spirit in disguise as her?”

“If I’m a spirit, that’s news to me as well,” Azula said quietly.

There was another prolonged silence. Then Ty Lee gestured to Katara for the plate of sushi and once it had been passed over, Ty Lee offered a piece to Azula with a smile. Azula beamed at her, that same shy smile as earlier and bit into it hungrily, and at once the tension in the air dropped away.

“I um like your hair, Toph.”

Toph reached up and touched her newly cropped hair. “Thanks. I wish I could say I like yours but I don’t know what you look like.”

“Ooh, Azula, tell everyone what you’ve been doing while you’ve been here! She’s been doing art.” Ty Lee tapped her on the shoulder again with a grin.

“Yes. Not really doing art. My father didn’t think creativity was very important when I was younger.”

“Yeah, you hotheads aren’t the best at expressing yourselves.”

“Toph!”

“What, I’m just stating facts.”

“Suki brought me some play texts though and I’ve been reading those. I found Love Amongst Dragons. Ty Lee, Mai and I used to act it out all the time when we were younger.”

“ _I_ didn’t,” said Mai.

“Yes, she did, she did the sound effects,” said Ty Lee.

“It was Zuzu’s favorite.”

“Zuko always told us the Ember Island Players used to butcher it.”

“Hey, I think the Ember Island Players are great. Especially that guy who played me.”

“We saw a play they put on about us a couple years back,” Suki clarified. “And there was this big buff guy playing Toph and she liked him so much she’s commissioning him to play her again.”

“I’ve been thinking of writing some of my own plays,” Azula confessed. Her cheeks flushed as she did so.

“That’s a great idea, Azula!” Ty Lee exclaimed. Ty Lee thought she would be very good at writing plays. She had been very imaginative in the games they used to play as children and she had lived a very interesting life which she could incorporate into her work.

“Yeah, you are very dramatic,” teased Toph.

They carried on playing truth or dare. There was no deliberate effort to exclude Azula but somehow, she had not been asked to do a truth or dare. Ty Lee wondered if Azula had ever played the game before.

“Okay, Toph. I dare you to…kiss somebody in this room!”

“Oh, come on, Suki,” Katara laughed. “That’s her favorite dare. She says it all the time when we’re on Team Avatar vacations.”

Toph sat facing all of them, conceited in the knowledge that anyone could be her target. “If you come near me, Toph, I’ll cut you,” said Mai.

“Alright, get over here, Sugar Queen.” Toph beckoned Katara over and quickly planted a kiss on her lips. “Happy now, Suki?”

Azula glanced at Ty Lee and raised her eyebrows with amusement. “Your slumber party activities are…interesting.”

Suki clapped her on the back. “Azula, truth or dare?”

“Dare, obviously.”

“Hmm, let me think about this one. Azula, I dare you to do the spider snake for a full minute.”

There was a chorus of “ohhhh”.

“The what?”

“It’s a dance,” said Ty Lee. She demonstrated, lying on the floor on her stomach and moving her body using only the strength in her chest.

Azula snorted. “That’s a dance? It looks humiliating.” Then she remembered herself. “But I can do that.”

She could not do it. Yes, she could lie on her stomach and kick her legs while rolling her shoulders a bit, but it had none of the smoothness and elasticity of Ty Lee’s version of the dance. But then that was what this game of truth or dare was about: messing around and having fun like teenagers did.

Everyone laughed and cheered for her. Toph laughed the hardest, no doubt getting a clear picture of her dance moves from the vibrations in the floor. When the time was up (although Suki added on a few extra seconds), Azula’s face was bright red.

“Stop laughing!” Her demand was undermined by her voice wavering as she was swept away by their laughter in the last syllable. “I think I was utterly flawless at that.” They all laughed harder.

After activities that went on late into the night until they had giggled themselves to exhaustion, the girls got ready for bed. Azula went to sleep on the couch she had slept on the night before. However, as Ty Lee got into bed beside Mai, she did note Katara lying so that she was facing Azula with her blanket pulled down low enough that she would be able to get out of bed easily. She feared a surprise attack from Azula. Ty Lee could understand that; she would have done the same up until a few days ago, but she worried it would hurt Azula’s feelings if she saw. She wanted to fit in so badly.

This was the second night in a row Ty Lee stirred when she sensed something wrong. She saw a shadow moving about the room but once her eyes had adjusted to the dark, she recognized the skinny frame and glowing amber eyes as the figure headed to the sliding door.

“Azula?” Ty Lee whispered.

“Were you just waiting for me to get up? I’m not trying to escape if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“No, I wasn’t. I just woke up. What are you doing then?”

“I couldn’t sleep so I thought I’d go for a midnight walk. Then I remembered I can’t.”

“Can you two dunderheads be quiet?” groaned a groggy Toph from her sleeping bag.

“Sorry, Toph.” She whispered to Azula again. “You can go for a midnight walk. You’ll just have to be accompanied by me.” She unlocked the sliding door and took Azula onto the porch. They sat on the steps for a while, looking at the moon that was big and bright.

“That’s what gives waterbenders their power, you know,” said Azula. “Whereas us firebenders are aligned with the sun.

“It’s just beautiful. I always love this view. Look at all the stars! We could never see so many in the capital.”

“I know. The only time I’ve ever seen a sky like this back home was on Ember Island.”

“How did you find tonight?”

“I enjoyed it. I’m not sure I quite understand teenage slumber parties but I thought I ought to experience some. It was nice of you to try to include me even though you all hate me.”

“They don’t hate you.”

“Really? That waterbender pea— Sorry, slip of the tongue. Katara doesn’t seem to like me at all.”

“She’ll warm up to you.”

“Like you did?”

“Yeah, I guess so. I didn’t ask, why were you outside my room in the first place?”

“I don’t think those healers knew what to do with me. They just brought me back to this building and told me to go back to my room. I assumed that was here but then I heard you all laughing. I was going to find Hikari or one of those others instead but I just couldn’t move. I was missing out on all of that. On all of what I could have had.”

“I know,” said Ty Lee, her mind drifting once more back to the slumber parties they had as kids where she and Azula fell asleep lying on top of each other after a night of acting out that old play. “Well, we’re still young.”

“Sometimes I can’t believe how young we were back then. Fourteen, ready to conquer the whole world. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

 _I don’t know about that._ If anything, no longer wanting to conquer the world was better. Ty Lee couldn’t bring herself to form the words. Instead she asked, “how’s your neck?” Azula pulled down the collar to reveal it bandaged up. Without even thinking, Ty Lee reached to touch the dressing.

“A warrior wound,” Azula said proudly. “I was scared last night, when that person came to attack me. I don’t even know why I’m telling you this. It’s so stupid but I just feel this strange feeling like I want to tell you. Let’s get this over with: I was scared they were going to kill me but I wondered if it would be better. For me to die. I deserved it. And I imagined people being happy I’d be gone. Of course they would, they’d be throwing parties around the world to celebrate my death. And I couldn’t go out like that with them all deeming me a stain on the world, I needed to live to prove I could be better, so I was _scared._ ” She choked out the last word. “Scared. And then you came in and saved me. My hero.”

Her eyes were glossy. A tear welled and got stuck in her eyelash. As her face creased up, Azula turned away but Ty Lee caught her by the chin. She wiped away the tear.

There was one thing Ty Lee knew she needed to do that she wanted to do. She lowered her head towards Azula and sealed her fate with the princess on her lips.

It was not all gentle touches, only half-committing, handling each other like glass, barely imparting anything on the other’s lips, veering around confessing feelings and fearing stepping out of line, like their first kiss had been.

It was not a confusion of anger and hatred and starvation and twisted dependency, contained within an artificial haunted room, as enemies who really shouldn’t have been kissing, like their second kiss had been.

Once Azula had gotten over her initial surprise that the thing she had craved but not believed was a possibility was happening, and relaxed into the kiss, it was a bit passionate because they were teenagers who were having their first kiss in ages. Ty Lee did get a bit too into it, her hair falling in between them and her accidentally squishing her nose too hard against Azula, before they got it right.

Sometimes people kissed before adversity, one display of love because they might not have another chance, because this was a matter of life and death. Azula’s whole life had been adversity. Now this kiss was her safe haven. A shelter to stand under during the storm. A break from the conflict.

This kiss said I still have feelings for you. This kiss connected to the past, to the childhood friends who played together. This kiss said, _I like the person you’re becoming. I trust you right now._ Not all forgiveness bestowed entirely but the first step towards true forgiveness. Ty Lee was letting go of the turmoil and mixed feelings she had carried all these years. Forming what could have been from what had been.

When they were done, Azula shielded her face. She was blushing, _again._ Seriously, what was wrong with her? She used to be so good at keeping her emotions under wraps. How could someone blush so many times in one night?

“Did Suki dare you to do that?”

“No,” said Ty Lee. “I wanted to.”

When they went back inside, they sat together on Azula’s couch, just locked there holding each other. Azula needed to feel like she was safe. Ty Lee would have been very happy to guard Azula all night but as chance would have it, they fell asleep lying on each other’s shoulders with their arms linked.

* * *

The next few days were hectic.

Suki stood over them on the couch the morning after the slumber party, her hands on her hips. She offered them a wink.

Neither Azula nor Ty Lee saw what happened with Aang finding out about Azula. Suki and Sokka offered to explain it to him as close friends of his who could act as mediators. It was uncertain how long they talked to him for, what they had to say to sway him, but when he came out of that room to meet Azula, the cheery airbender was smiling.

“Pleased to meet you again, Azula.” He held out his hand and she shook it holding his fingers by their tips.

“Thank you, Avatar.” This dorky kid was actually quite nice. That was unexpected for potentially the most powerful person in the world. She was so used to power contaminating. He actually reminded her of Ty Lee a little bit.

“Do you want to see some airbending tricks? Then maybe you could show me how you turn your fire blue. I’d love to be able to do that!”

A few days later, Emiko came back with some medicine for Azula and willing to have some more sessions with her. She sat with Azula and Ty Lee and explained it to them.

“Just a spoon every day. I can’t promise it will fix everything. You still have to do the work yourself. But when you’re especially upset and might be seeing things, it might help you calm down and come back to reality quicker.”

Then the letter back from Zuko arrived. Right after he received Sokka’s letter, he said he had heard rumors of Azula’s presence on Kyoshi Island although he had done his best to subdue them. He had sent out a private force looking for this assassin, although he warned there could be others. Azula had to cut her stay at Kyoshi Island short, not that there had been a set time for it anyway.

He had made arrangements for her to enter Ba Sing Se, although how that was any better was unknown to her. Yes, it had all those walls (which she herself had broken through), but it was a big secluded city with many people who would hate her if they knew who she was.

Team Avatar would drop her off there when they left Kyoshi Island on Appa. They were needed in various parts of the world. And Ty Lee was going to come with her.

“Are you sure about this, Ty Lee?” This was fresh and out of the blue.

“Yes. It will be an adventure! I could do with a vacation.” Ty Lee kissed Azula’s hand and Azula smiled again, that adorable smile that was showing itself more frequently these days.

On the day they were due to leave, everyone packed their bags onto Appa.

Ty Lee felt everyone draw in a breath when Azula’s cuffs were finally removed. She was the only one who didn’t. It was understandable why they would be afraid that she would immediately turn on them with her firebending, but Ty Lee trusted her and had no doubts she would not hurt them.

“Thanks for staying with me so long,” Ty Lee said to Mai.

“Don’t mention it.” She sighed. “I suppose I could say I’ve had a good time.”

“You have?” Ty Lee bounced where she stood.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it. It’s been nice. Nostalgic. All of us.”

“Are you talking about Azula?”

“I’m not going to apologize for being so harsh on her in the first place or for being sceptical when you told me how you felt about her. But she’s right. She has changed a lot. And you two seem happy together so I’m happy for you.”

“I don’t know if I’d say we’re together—”

“You’re together,” Mai dismissed her. “Listen to me because I really would prefer not to repeat myself. I love you, Ty Lee. You’re my best friend.”

“I love you too.”

“I just mean I don’t want anything to happen to you. I’m not saying something is going to happen. I’m just hoping that helps you understand. I’ve shared enough now.”

Azula approached them. Suki had lent her a traditional green Earth Kingdom dress that was quite loose on her and she wore a flower in her hair. The bag she was bringing was very light, mainly filled with the books and scrolls she had taken an interest in.

“Hi Mai. Glad you’ll be rid of me now?”

Mai grunted. “I wouldn’t be opposed to the three of us all hanging out again in the future.”

Ty Lee was not sure quite what she was witnessing as Azula and Mai stood opposite each other but it was all very bizarre. They didn’t hate each other. They were both almost smiling.

Finally, Mai held out her palm to Azula. “Katara made me this. It’s too bright for me. I thought you might like it instead and Katara would probably be happy for you to have it.” It was one of Katara’s friendships bracelets, intertwined threads of yellow, blue and pink.

“Thank you, Mai. What an unexpected gesture.”

“Oh Mai!” Ty Lee threw her arms around Mai. “Come here, too, Azula!”

“Personal space, Ty Lee.”

“Are we having a group hug?” Suki piled herself in.

“Aw yeah, Kyoshi Island Squad!” Sokka joined them as well, squeezing his face against Ty Lee’s.

“Ugh, how did we end up being friends with this lot?” Mai said to Azula, another moment of solidarity between them. When she had been let go of, she rubbed her neck and brushed off her dress. “Just don’t hurt her. Or you’ll be facing my knives. And you know from personal experience how much that will hurt.”

* * *

Eight people traveling on Appa’s back. It was a heavier load than he was used to but they soared on. After a few days, the orange desert was below them and up ahead were the tall walls of Ba Sing Se.

This was not Azula’s first time flying on Appa but she still utterly detested it. When she vocalized this, Toph said, “Tell me about it sister.”

They passed the first wall and tiny figures of people were visible on the streets, stopping in their paths and pointing up at them. Azula imagined them all saying, “Look, it’s the Avatar,” and cheering. It was so silly, them placing their lives in his hands, just because he had defeated her father. Admittedly, a noble feat, but still, she wanted to have control of her own destiny. Although it did feel nice to be protected by someone else sometimes.

They landed behind a tea shop called ‘The Jasmine Dragon’ and Ty Lee and Azula disembarked. “Bye everyone!” called Ty Lee. “See you all soon!” Everyone waved back and Azula raised her hand at them in what was intended as a wave but transformed into a salute. Ty Lee laughed at her and grabbed her hand, dragging her along.

“The Jasmine Dragon? Is this my uncle’s tea shop?”

“Yes? Sorry, I thought you knew. Are you going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine. Let’s get this over with.” She squeezed her eyes shut tight and took several deep breaths as Emiko had advised her to. A simple technique to calm down in any social situation.

They entered through the back and Azula caught a quick glimpse of her uncle behind the counter, chatting merrily to his customers. His eyes drifted to her and he was startled but there was no resentment in them. None at all.

He looked happier than she’d ever see him. Yes, to her he’d always been that goofy old man who always seemed unaware of the situations he was in or otherwise not bothered by them, but here he was truly alive. He had found his calling. Azula hoped to find that one day, although she could not fathom why his calling would be serving tea to annoying customers all day.

A guest room was made up for them with two nice beds and a big vase of flowers in the window. There were paintings on the walls, some of which Azula identified as being done by Zuko, and many books on the shelves.

Uncle Iroh soon took a break from working to visit them.

“Azula. It is a pleasure to have you here. And it is wonderful to see you too, Ty Lee. You look very grown up.”

“Thank you, Iroh. It’s great to see you too!”

“Can I make you some tea, niece? I assume the usual for you, Ty Lee.”

“Yes please!”

“I’ll have the same as her…please.”

“It will be so good to have two extra tea servers.”

“Tea servers?!”

“Yes. These winter months get very busy and people like to have warm drinks. Zuko had to work here as well,” he told her. “I promise it will be a very good experience for you.”

“How delightful,” Azula said with clipped syllables.

“Excellent. I will get you your uniforms. You will be a family friend who is visiting from Kyoshi Island like Ty Lee. What do you say to us calling you ‘Akira’? I have always found it a very pretty name for a girl.”

“Why do I need another name? Why can’t you just call me my name?”

“Believe me, it would bring me much joy to call you Azula, but what would the customers think? You need an alias while you are here.”

Azula drew in another heavy breath to stop herself shouting. “Then Akira it is.”

“Niece, you must understand you will have very difficult times ahead. You are going through a metamorphosis, but I am here for you and so is Ty Lee. I saw it all with Zuko as well. I am immensely proud of both of you, that you are so much greater than the legacy your father wanted you to inherit. And I am so happy you broke free of your father’s spell. You can now live to the great potential you have within you.”

Her stomach churned like it was full of bubbles. But it felt good. She could have burst into tears. “Thank you, Uncle.”

“Now let’s get you both some tea.”

* * *

“What was it you said to him again?”

“That we’d be the strongest couple in the world and that we’d dominate the earth.”

Ty Lee almost fell of the bed and dropped her tea she was laughing so hard. Her favorite tea was boba, Uncle Iroh’s recent invention, in different sweet flavors. Azula couldn’t stand it. She had never been a big fan of tea in the first place but even then, she thought tea should be warm and liquid. So now, she depended on Uncle’s green tea.

“That’s brilliant! You must have scared him so much.”

“He couldn’t have handled a girl like me anyway. Even if I did like boys. Good old Chan, I wonder what life’s like for him after the war.”

“He must have figured out who you were at the coronation. Seeing Zuko.”

“Yes, I assume many people Zuko annoyed over the years were shocked to see him at the coronation. I expect Chan boasted to all his friends that he kissed the Firelord’s sister. Actually, probably not. I don’t exactly have the stellar reputation.”

“We should go back and vandalize their beach house.”

“Agreed.” Azula’s eyes flitted to Ty Lee, mischievously. “You know, _you and I_ could be the strongest couple in the world. I know, strength and power aren’t everything anymore. We’re still a power couple.”

Ty Lee beamed. She loved when Azula called them a couple. Ty Lee held Azula against her and kissed her.

They jumped apart at the creaking of the door and Azula resumed pretending to write her verses. Uncle Iroh was in the doorway, wearing his apron.

“Niece, you have some people here to see you.”

Azula looked up, scowling. “Who is it?”

“It’s Zuko and your mother.”

Azula sat bolt upright. “What?!”

“They’re not angry with you, they’d very much like to see you. And they’re willing to listen to anything you have to say.”

Ty Lee took her hand. “I can stay with you, if you want.”

“They may enter.”

Then there stood her brother and her mother. It was hard to believe Zuko was the Firelord. Yes, he was twenty now but he still looked very young. Still that moody boy she had picked on. His hair was long and falling in his eyes to a ridiculous degree now, but he offered her a smile. She knew he didn’t mean it. She saw her mother had her face back now. She could see some of Zuko in Ursa’s face. Maybe some of herself too. She seethed at the sight of her. _Calm down, calm down._ That instantaneous visceral hatred fell over her but she was starting to realize that it was that father who instilled that hatred in her head in the first place. They were both scared of her, both hang back, but her mother had tears in her eyes.

Of course, Ty Lee ran right over to Zuko and hugged him. Meanwhile, Ursa approached Azula but she couldn’t hide her fear.

“I’m so happy to see you safe, Azula.”

“Why are _you_ here? You hate me.”

“Azula—”

“Mom.” Zuko spoke up. “Remember what we said.”

“Right.” She talked slowly and calmly. “Azula, I’ve never hated you. I need you to believe me when I say that. When you were younger, I loved your determination, how clever you were, how imaginative—”

“But you were scared of the rest of me.”

She nodded. “I _was_ scared. I was scared of what your father was turning you into. And I’m sorry I didn’t pay you more attention to stop him getting into your head. I didn’t mean to treat you like a lost cause. It was just hard to know what to do sometimes. I didn’t know whether it was you I was speaking to or him. People thrive when they have people they love and trust and I wish I could have been that for you. But we escaped him. We did it, sweetie.” Now Ursa did start to cry. “And I really hope you can be a part of our new family with me. Even get along with your little sister.”

“Because she was my replacement, wasn’t she?!”

“No, dearest. No one could replace you.”

Zuko stepped forward and put his hand on Azula’s shoulder. Azula swatted him away. Not particularly violently. Like two siblings playfighting.

“You don’t know it Azula, but you saved my life when we were younger. I know you didn’t mean to but you did. Dad was going to kill me and when you heard him say so and told me, Mom found out. It’s why she had to leave. To stop Dad hurting the two of us.”

“To stop him hurting _you,_ you mean.”

“Now Azula, stop it,” Ursa instructed, sternly.

“It’s okay, Mom. We’re letting her get it all out. Mom made a deal. Dad said if he didn’t kill me, she’d have to leave. She begged him to bring us with but he needed us with him for the bloodline. He promised he wouldn’t hurt either of us if he left.” Zuko touched his face. “But that obviously wasn’t true.”

“All that man did was lie,” scorned Ursa in the corner.

“He did, didn’t he?” said Azula. “You wanted to bring us both with you? Even me?”

“Yes! And I couldn’t live with myself having left you behind. I just didn’t want him hurting either of you more than he already had. But he did. He _did._ ”

“Mom?” asked Azula. Not Ursa. Mom _._

“Yes, sweetie?”

“Can I try hugging you? I’ve become better at hugging.”

“Um okay.” It was an incredibly awkward hug. Ty Lee’s were far better. It was stilted and both women kept a good deal of distance between their arms and the skin of the other.

They were going to be fine though. They _were_ going to be a family.

“I heard Azula has a _girlfriend_.” Uncle Iroh slid into the conversation once some of the tension was defused.

“Uncle, please!”

“That’s great. Is it Ty Lee?”

“Alright, all of you can leave me alone now!”

Zuko nudged Azula and smirked at her. “Now you know how it feels.”

“Shut up, Zuzu. I still don’t like you.”

“I think you do.”

“No, I don’t. Maybe. I’m undecided yet. I’m still better than you.”

* * *

When the Jasmine Dragon was closed and Azula was talking to Ursa alone, Ty Lee ate dinner with Zuko downstairs.

“Are you really dating Azula then?”

“Yeah, we are.”

“Because you know I’m completely supportive.”

“Yes, I know. Suki told me how hard you and Aang worked to make same-gender couples legal in the Fire Nation again.”

“It was hard work, convincing all those old advisors, but it was worth it.”

“Were you surprised at all about us?” she laughed through a mouthful of noodles.

“I was. I guess it makes sense, the way you used to be with each other. But the last time I heard you talk about her, you seemed to hate her more than I ever had. I don’t know how you could come back from that.”

“I did hate her in a strange way that was really bad for me. It hurts more when it’s someone you cared about. It was why I didn’t want to believe her because she upset me so much in the first place. I didn’t want people to think I was weak or stupid or just wanted to believe she was good again. And it took time at first but I saw her trying so hard to be better, and that’s the point of the world, isn’t it? People changing and learning. And I don’t think I’ve ever been so sure of anything.”

“It feels like we’ve all come full circle now. I know you remember that night on Ember Island. I talked to Mai about it and she does too.”

“I’m glad you and Mai are still talking. She visited me on Kyoshi Island.”

“Mai and I are trying to be friends. I think it’s better that way. But I can’t help but think back to that night and think how that was when we first all realized how screwed up things were. Now all of us are on the way to changing for the better, to getting what we all admitted we wanted that night.”

Ty Lee did remember that night. She and Azula had been talking about the more humorous aspects of it earlier, but she would always remember it, down to the clothes they’d been wearing, the biting night air, the sound of the waves lapping on the shore, her despair finally breaking through. It was the last time she recalled seeing the human in Azula before her grand betrayal. After that night, she’d though Azula might get better. And she had. It had just taken longer than all of them would have hoped, but she had.

“All of you were so mean to me and each other that night.”

“I know.”

“I told you all that negative energy was bad.”

He chuckled. “Thanks for always being there, Ty Lee. I’m happy the two of you have each other.”

* * *

Azula’s hair falling in her eyes was a nuisance. One day it was too much. She stormed upstairs and found a pair of craft scissors. Ty Lee walked in on her crying, her hair very noticeably chopped at different lengths all around her head and the scissors lodged in a tangle.

She held her. “It will be okay. I can help you fix it.”

Ty Lee got to work on Azula’s hair. She washed through it with shampoo and brushed it out, teasing out the knots, tugging it into long strands. When she held the dark hair in her hands with scissors poised above it, she worried it was sacrilege to cut it, the hair of a princess.

“Please.”

Ty Lee cut it, carefully letting the shortened strands fall away. Azula’s hair was now much shorter, just down to her shoulders. She trimmed the hair framing her face a bit shorter to have those hanging strands Azula had always had, so she would feel like some part of her old self was preserved. Maybe the person she had been when they were young together. Ty Lee prepared to tie it up just as Azula had always done hers in a bun. However, after pulling back a few pieces to keep them out of her eyes, Azula stopped her doing anything more.

“Leave it down.”

New beginnings came in strange and wonderful forms.

* * *

Azula hated working in the tea shop. Many of the customers were rude to her and her first instinct which she repressed was often to chuck tea in their face or even on a few terrible occasions, she thought how much she would have liked to challenge them to Agni Kais if they had been firebenders.

She and Zuko exchanged knowing looks across the tea shop floor whenever they were being bothered by rude or just aggravating customers. He must have a soft spot for the tea shop though if he abandoned his Firelord duties to do work there. It was always hilarious when a customer recognized him and asked if he was the Firelord. Some of them stared at his scar and Azula could always tell they wanted to ask but were afraid of embarrassment. Why would the Firelord be working in a tea shop?

In the evenings, she and Ty Lee talked a lot and read together and did stretches together and trained and kissed. Ty Lee taught her to cook and Azula read Ty Lee some of her verses, or they read together from the plays they had to hand. One day Zuko walked in on them reading from Love Amongst Dragons and ran to his room to get his Blue Spirit mask so he could join them.

They pranked Zuko by propping a bucket of cold tea on top of the door that spilled on him, causing him to start yelling, and Uncle Iroh complained about all the produce they had lost, all while trying to conceal his laughter at Zuko’s soaked hair falling in his eyes. Ty Lee had to stop Azula pulling the same prank on one regular patron she really didn’t like because she always kept her waiting at the table for so long, asking her about every single type of tea they had, before deciding to stick with something simple.

She and Zuko were talking and unpacking all that had happened with their dad. Sometimes, the sessions ended in tears or with Azula shouting because some of it was so hard to accept but every evening once she had calmed down, she would calmly realize he was right.

Her uncle and Zuko practised firebending with her in the backyard. Everyone in the neighborhood knew a firebender lived here so it wasn’t much of a sight to see the contained flames shooting through the air. Azula was humiliated at first that they thought she had more firebending to learn and confused when Uncle Iroh started telling her about waterbending, but Zuko told her to hear him out. He said to use the techniques in her firebending. It would make her bending more well-rounded.

Ty Lee found them parties to go to with other girls from the city, where Azula introduced herself as Akira and held Ty Lee’s hand and had Ty Lee teach her how to dance and have her proudly at her side as her girlfriend. Girls dating other girls wasn’t really talked about publicly in Ba Sing Se but younger people tended to be more accepting and there were even some other couples like them. With Ty Lee, she didn’t have to force herself to laugh. Her laughter came naturally enough.

They walked around the city, trying out different cafes, going to the museum and the theatre. Ty Lee found some younger girls who she offered to teach chi-blocking to as self-defence.

Azula gained weight and looked healthier. She smiled more, the creases in her face softened, her mean quips were replaced with jokes. She liked tossing her shorter hair, the way it just brushed her shoulders when it was down.

Eventually they had to leave. Azula brought it up one night when they were lying in bed together, Ty Lee’s soft arms wrapped around Azula, keeping her safe, making her feel treasured.

“We need to go. I can’t just hide out here forever. And you were the one who told me I should see the world.”

Zuko and Ursa had left a month ago as it was, returning to the palace. Azula hoped she too could return there one day but for now, she had been told it was best to lie low. Maybe she could go back there posing as a servant girl or a Kyoshi Warrior guard. The old her would have hated the idea of either, but playing pretend might actually be quite fun, she thought now.

Aang, Katara and Toph stopped by a few weeks ago to see them and had mentioned that if the pair of them were ever traveling the world, they could meet up with the rest of Team Avatar. Aang had a thing of taking people on vacations to wherever their hearts desired and Ty Lee was struggling to choose between a singing forest and a spiritual valley she had read about, in the hypothetical situation Aang did take them on a vacation.

Azula and Ty Lee were going to see the world in its entirety, see the effect the war had had on it and maybe help fix some of the ruin that had been done to smaller towns. Education and atonement all in one. So, they packed up all of their things and the many pages Azula had written of play ideas, and all Ty Lee’s meditation gear and some tea recipes Uncle Iroh gave them and got ready to leave Ba Sing Se and see the world.

Maybe they would first make a stop at the Cave of Two Lovers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaah I can't believe it's finished! Again, thanks so much everyone for reading. I've really appreciated all your lovely comments. I'd say I hope to write for this fandom again but honestly I say that everytime I write for a new fandom and it never really pans out, but I really would like to write about avatar again. Perhaps something about Suki and Sokka?  
> Some notes I want to make:  
> 1\. Yes I wrote an avatar universe equivalent of doing the worm. I was looking up good dares for truth or dare and it was right there.  
> 2\. Uncle Iroh actually invents boba in the Promise trilogy. I'm not even joking.  
> 3\. What happened to the assassin you ask? I don't know. That's what I call a plot device.  
> 4\. I knew I wouldn't be able to give Azula a full redemption arc in the span of one fic, but I really hope I've rendered something here where everyone starting to forgive her including Ty Lee is believable. I just want her to be happy  
> 5\. I was going to use the word lesbian at some point in the fic then I remembered the term literally only exists because of Sappho of Lesbos which obviously doesn’t exist in the Avatar universe so Avatar Kyoshi is the equivalent of Sappho now and ‘kyoshine’ is the equivalent of ‘sapphic’
> 
> Cheeky self promo I'm also @ninasfireescape on Tumblr and I've started doing fanart, some of it for atla so if you check the tag /myart you'll be able to see it there. I love talking to people so if you want to come chat to me about atla or about this fic in general please don't feel shy! I'd love to hear from you!
> 
> Thanks so much everyone :)


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